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CHRISTIAN    HISTORY 


IN    ITS 


Three  Great  Periods 

EARLY    CHRISTIANITY 


BY 

JOSEPH    HENRY  VALLEN 

Author  of  "Hebrew  Men  and  Times,"   "Our   Liberal 
Movement  in  Theology,"  &c. 


Cujus  omnis  religio  est  sine  scelere  ac  macula  vivere 

Lactantius 


BOSTON 

ROBERTS     BROTHERS 

1883 


Copyright, 
By  Joseph  Henry  Allen. 


University  Press: 
John  Wilson  and  Son,  Cambridge. 


EFACE 


T  1 1HESE  volumes,  of  which  the  first  was  originally 
-■-  published  under  the  title  "Fragments  of  Chris- 
tian History,"  were  prepared  in  the  regular  course  of 
duty  in  the  department  of  Ecclesiastical  History  in 
Harvard  University.  Taken  together,  the  two  em- 
brace the  entire  development  of  Catholic  Christianity, 
coming  down  to  the  eve  of  the  Eeformation.  Their 
plan  requires  for  its  completion  a  third  volume,  re- 
viewing certain  modern  phases  of  religious  life  and 
thought,  which  is  now  in  preparation.  The  series 
thus  contains  a  general  view,  or  outline,  of  the  course 
of  study  indicated  in  the  Introduction,  which  I  have 
attempted  to  fill  out  in  the  University  lecture-courses. 
Taken  in  connection  with  "  Hebrew  Men  and  Times," 
which  serves  as  preface,  and  "  Our  Liberal  Movement 
in  Theology,"  which  serves  as  sequel,  it  gives  a  simi- 
lar outline  of  the  great  religious  tradition  that  has 
come  down  to  our  own  time. 


IV  PREFACE. 

The  series  is  far,  indeed,  from  being  such  a  history 
as  its  subject  might  well  demand  from  the  scholar- 
ship of  the  present  day ;  not  even  such  -as  I  might 
possibly  attempt,  with  a  longer  prospect  of  working 
time.  It  is  but  a  slender  gleaning  in  a  wide  field, 
which  has  been  well  reaped  by  stronger  hands.  Far 
enough  from  taking  the  place  of  larger  and  more 
learned  works,  it  can  serve,  at  best,  as  a  key  or  guide 
to  younger  students  through  a  region  which  has  its 
special  difficulties  to  the  modern  explorer.  It  can, 
at  best,  make  a  little  clearer  to  other  minds  a  point 
of  view  which  has  been  of  increasing  interest  to  me 
in  the  studies  of  the  last  thirty  years,  and  in  the 
labors  of  the  last  five. 

At  all  events,  it  exhibits,  as  fairly  as  I  can  give,  a 
view  of  the  subject  which  I  have  never  seen  properly 
worked  out.  In  whatever  way  we  regard  the  origin 
and  early  growth  of  Christianity,  whether  as  special 
revelation  or  as  historic  evolution,  it  appears  to  me 
that  the  key  to  it  is  to  be  found,  not  in  its  specula- 
tive dogma,  not  in  its  ecclesiastical  organization,  not 
even  in  what  strictly  constitutes  its  religious  life,  but 
in  its  fundamentally  ethical  character.  In  either  way 
of  understanding  it,  it  is  first  of  all  a  gospel  for  the 
salvation  of  human  life.  It  is  not  a  Creed,  which 
perishes  ;  but  a  Force,  which  persists. 

And  to  this  primary  notion  of  it  everything  else 
has  been  subordinated  to  a  degree  that  astonishes  me 


PREFACE.  V 

more  and  more  as  I  look  into  its  original  documents. 
A  motive  so  intense  and  so  profound  —  however 
crude  and  misinformed  —  as  to  dominate  the  reason 
and  imagination  for  more  than  a  thousand  years,  and 
to  create  a  civilization  which  had  (we  may  say)  every 
great  quality  except  that  of  a  voice  for  its  own  inter- 
pretation, —  which  stifled  thought  in  the  interest  of 
morality,  which  reduced  Art  after  its  rich  classic  de- 
velopment to  a  bald  symbolism,  and  made  a  free 
science  or  literature  impossible,  —  whatever  else  we 
may  think  of  it,  is  certainly  an  amazing  and  unique 
phenomenon  in  human  history.  From  Constantine 
to  Dante  that  is,  substantially,  the  fact  we  have  to 
study.  The  chapters  which  follow  are  designed  as  a 
contribution  to  the  right  understanding  of  it. 

These  volumes  are  very  far  from  claiming  to  be  a 
history.  Yet  just  as  little  are  they  a  compilation. 
The  judgments  they  express  are  such  as  have  been 
ripening  during  thirty  years  of  reasonable  familiarity 
with  most  of  the  phases  of  the  subject  I  have  at- 
tempted to  present ;  and  they  rest,  in  all  cases,  upon 
the  acquaintance  I  have  been  able  to  make  with  the 
original  sources  of  the  history.  I  was  so  fortunate 
as  to  begin  these  studies  within  reach  of  the  Con- 
gressional Library  at  Washington,  which  is  (or  was) 
exceptionally  rich  in  the  earlier  authorities ;  and  to 
continue  them  as  Dart  of  my  stated  labors  here,  with 
the  far  ampler  treasures  of  the  University  Library  at 


VI  PREFACE. 

command.  Of  course  I  have  availed  myself,  where 
I  could,  of  modern  expositors  and  standard  histori- 
ans, —  of  which  due  acknowledgment  is  made  in  the 
notes.  My  constant  authorities,  however,  have  been 
the  volumes  of  the  Fathers,  of  the  early  historians, 
and  especially  of  Migne's  Patrologia,  both  Greek  and 
Latin.  I  have  endeavored  to  keep  true  to  the  maxim 
which  ought  to  govern  such  an  exposition :  that  it 
should  include  the  secular  as  well  as  the  religious 
side  of  events  ;  that  it  should  deal  primarily  with 
intellectual  and  moral  forces  rather  than  speculative 
opinions  or  institutional  forms ;  and  that  it  should 
rest  at  all  points  directly  on  original  authorities, 
wherever  these  are  accessible. 

A  brief  Chronological  Outline  has  been  added  to 
each  volume,  not  as  sufficient  for  the  uses  of  the 
student,  but  in  order  to  make  the  bearing  of  allusions 
and  events  more  distinct  to  those  who  are  not  other- 
wise familiar  with  the  ground.  To  the  student  the 
standard  historians,  especially  Gieseler  and  Neander, 
to  the  general  reader  Milman's  histories  and  Green- 
wood's  Cathedra  Petri,  may  be  recommended  to  fill  in 
the  sketch  which  is  here  attempted.  But  it  cannot 
be  too  strongly  urged  that  some  acquaintance  with 
Catholic  historians,  such  as  those  indicated  in  my 
brief  list  of  authorities,  is  indispensable,  if  not  to  a 
knowledge  of  the  facts,  at  least  to  an  apprehension  of 
the  spirit  and  motive,  of  the  earlier  time.     JSTo  such 


PREFACE.  Vll 

list  is  given  for  the  period  since  the  Eeformation  ; 
when,  ecclesiasticism  having  been  defeated,  an  un- 
derstanding of  the  forces  in  the  field  must  be  sought 
not  so  much  in  the  special  historians  of  this  depart- 
ment, as  in  the  wider  study  of  modern  literature, 
science,  philosophy,  and  life. 

In  conclusion,  I  would  say  that  the  view  I  have 
attempted  to  present  claims  a  special  interest  and 
value,  as  vindicating  for  historical  Christianity  a  sig- 
nificance often  denied  or  overlooked  in  the  current 
thought  of  our  time.  This  significance  belongs  to  it 
as  an  exhibition  of  the  highest  and  most  varied  forms 
of  the  religious  life  yet  known,  and  is  absolutely 
independent  on  any  theory  of  its  origin,  or  on  the 
truth  or  falsity  of  any  of  its  creeds. 

J.  H.  A. 

Cambridge,  Massachusetts, 
December  31,  1882. 


Introduction  :   Study  of  Christian  History 


IX 


I.   The  Messiah  and  the  Christ i 

II.    Saint  Paul 21 

III.  Christian  Thought  of  the  Second  Century  47 

IV.  The  Mind  of  Paganism 71 

V.   The  Arian  Controversy 100 

VI.    Saint  Augustine 122 

VII.    Leo  the  Great 146 

VIII.     MONASTICISM   AS   A    MORAL   FORCE 1 65 

IX.   Christianity  in  the  East 185 

X.   Conversion  of  the  Barbarians 204 

XI.   The  Holy  Roman  Empire 227 

XII.   The  Christian  Schools 249 

Chronological  Outline 275 

Index 279 


INTRODUCTION. 


ON  THE   STUDY   OF  CHRISTIAN  HISTORY. 

AMONG  those  who  accept  Christianity  as  a  revela- 
tion, in  the  most  definite  sense  they  are  able  to 
give  that  word,  there  are  two  contrary  ways  of  regard- 
ing it.  One  considers  it  as  an  interpolation  in  human 
things,  — a  "  scheme  of  salvation  "  introduced  at  a  defi- 
nite time,  completely  apart  from  anything  that  went  be- 
fore, except  as  the  way  may  have  been  prepared  for  it  by 
a  series  of  special  providences.  The  other  considers  it  as 
a  manifestation  of  the  Divine  life  common  to  humanity, 
coming  in  the  fulness  of  time,  and  as  much  prepared 
for  by  all  that  went  before  as  a  crop  of  fruit  is  ripened 
b}r  the  sunshine  and  showers  of  the  whole  season.  One 
sees  it  as  a  communication  from  without ;  the  other, 
as  a  development  from  within.  In  the  illustrations  I 
shall  attempt  to  give  of  it,  I  shall  frankly  take  the  lat- 
ter view. 

As  soon,  however,  as  we  begin  to  follow  up  this  view, 
we  find  ourselves  quite  outside  the  limits  of  "  ecclesias- 
tical history"  as  usually  defined.  Our  field  is,  in  fact, 
as  broad  as  civilization  itself:  only  that  we  deal  not 
so  much  with  its  external  forms,  its  institutions  and 
events,  but  with  its  governing  and  directing  forces  in  the 


X  INTRODUCTION". 

thought,  heart,  and  conscience  of  its  representative 
men.  What  we  call  the  history  of  dogma  is  really  a 
very  curious  and  instructive  chapter  in  the  development 
of  speculative  thought,  —  that  record  of  intellectual  effort 
and  error,  opening  out  from  Thales  all  the  way  down  to 
Hegel  or  Comte.  What  we  call  ecclesiastical  polity  is 
really  one  of  the  most  interesting  chapters  in  the  devel- 
opment of  social  or  political  institutions,  —  those  wa\r- 
marks,  guides,  and  buttresses  of  the  structure  of  civili- 
zation itself.  What  we  call  church  ceremonial  is  realty 
the  most  skilful,  the  most  subtile,  the  most  effective  ap- 
peal to  human  imagination,  as  one  of  the  chief  governing 
principles  of  conduct,  —  reaching  all  the  way  from  sim- 
ple decoration  of  altar  or  vestment  to  the  splendors 
of  form,  color,  and  vocal  or  instrumental  harmony  in 
a  great  cathedral,  or  the  tender  impressiveness  of  a 
Catholic  procession.  What  we  call  hierarchical  domi- 
nation —  resting  on  the  terrors  of  eternity,  and  ever  at 
war  with  the  powers  of  the  world  —  is  really  the  form 
authority  came  to  take  in  the  struggle,  bjr  which  the 
expanding  life  of  humanity  has  been  lifted  so  many 
degrees  above  the  savage  or  the  brute.  What  we  call 
canon  law  is  really  the  summing  up  of  several  centu- 
ries' effort,  by  rule  and  precedent,  to  construct  a  code 
of  morality,  and  with  it  to  create  a  new  social  system, 
amidst  the  wreck  of  ancient  society,  or  in  presence  of  the 
brutal  disorders  of  barbarian  invasion.  We  allow  for 
the  error,  the  false  ambition,  the  priestly  cunning,  the 
ecclesiastical  tyranny,  just  as  we  allow  for  the  violences, 
the  vices,  and  the  shames  that  run  through  all  the 
record  of  human  affairs.  The\T  are  incidents  in  that 
wider,  that  universal  4w  struggle  for  existence,"  which 
is  the  appointed  means  whereby  Divine  Providence  at- 
tains its  ends. 


THE    STUDY   OF   CHRISTIAN    HISTORY.  XI 

Now,  history  shows  us  many  well-defined  and  easily 
distinguishable  types  of  civilization,  — Egyptian,  Classic 
Pagan,  Mahometan,  Indian  ;  and  among  these  types  the 
•Christian  civilization  is  to  be  reckoned,  —  as  we  hold, 
the  highest  and  most  developed  hitherto.  Our  present 
business  is  to  see,  as  clearly  as  we  can,  just  what  this  is 
in  itself.  In  the  study  of  comparative  religions,  which 
is  one  of  the  boasts  of  our  day,  we  should  at  least  make 
sure  of  one  of  the  things  to  be  compared.  And  this 
will  be  best  done,  as  it  is  done  in  natural  history,  by 
patient,  detailed,  accurate  study  of  its  facts  and  fea- 
tures. These,  it  is  true,  are  found  in  what  is  some- 
what intangible,  —  in  the  thoughts  and  lives  of  a  great 
many  men,  scattered  along  through  a  great  period  of 
time.  But,  if  we  will  think  of  it,  the  scientific  method 
of  study  —  that  is,  of  comparison  and  judgment,  as 
opposed  to  the  method  of  heaping  up  mere  multiplicity 
of  facts  —  is  the  true  one,  as  Saint  Paul  himself  sug- 
gests, when  he  speaks  of  his  new  converts  as  olive-shoots, 
grafted  upon  a  hardy  stock.  It  is  no  disparagement  to 
pine,  beech,  or  maple,  to  claim  that  the  olive  has  a 
natural  history  of  its  own. 

Again,  as  alreacVv  hinted,  this  history  is  to  be  studied, 
in  the  main,  on  its  ethical  or  ideal  side,  and  not  merely 
in  the  record  of  its  facts  and  dates.  Christianit}'  has 
been  not  merely  a  type,  shaping  men's  lives  uncon- 
sciously, like  the  type,  or  law  of  growth,  of  any  organic 
product.  This  it  has  been  also,  in  the  highest,  the  di- 
vine, which  is  also  the  purely  scientific  sense.  But  not 
only  this.  It  has  been  vividly  conceived  in  the  thought 
of  its  believers  as  the  true  and  only  solution  to  the  great 
mystery  of  the  universe.  It  has  been  adoringly  received 
in  faith,  as  the  symbol  of  the  holiest  the  heart  can  love 
or  worship.     It  has  been  earnestly,  humbly,  obediently 


Xll  INTRODUCTION. 

accepted  by  the  conscience,  as  the  sovereign  law  of  life. 
In  each  one  of  these  three  wa}'s  it  has  been  held  with 
fanaticism  and  intolerance.  But  in  each  of  these  three 
ways,  also,  it  has  been  held  humbly,  reverently,  piously, 
valiantly,  and  has  thus  been  a  great  power  to  move  the 
world.  The  right  place  to  study  it  is  not  in  its  errors, 
ignorances,  bigotries,  and  crimes.  It  must  be  studied 
in  its  great  and  brave  sincerities,  as  witnessed  by  its 
glorious  martyr-roll,  blood-stained,  fire-scorched ;  b}T  its 
record  of  heroic  names,  from  those  who  bore  the  faith  like 
a  flag  before  the  despotisms  of  Rome  or  the  barbarisms 
of  Germany  and  Scandinavia,  down  to  the  last  mission- 
ary who  died  for  it  in  field  or  hospital ;  in  the  lives  of 
its  great  patient  thinkers,  the  prayers  of  its  saints,  the 
glad,  tender,  or  triumphant  strains  of  its  choruses  and 
hymns,  the  fidelity  of  many  generations  of  humble, 
trustful,  victorious  lives.  These  are  what  it  is  the  his- 
torian's chief  business  to  set  forth.  These  are  what  we 
mean  when  we  say  it  should  be  studied  first  of  all  on  its 
ideal  side,  and  not  in  that  which  is  false,  cruel,  turbu- 
lent, and  base. 

Again,  when  we  speak  of  a  type  of  civilization,  or  a 
type  of  mental  life,  we  mean  not  something  that  is  fixed 
and  still,  as  a  crystallographer  or  a  dogmatist  might 
understand  it.  The  life  we  speak  of  pours  in  a  gener- 
ous flood  from  its  unknown  source  to  its  unknown  future. 
Scientific  criticism  in  these  days  does  not  spare  anything 
from  its  rigid  search.  Of  course  it  rationalizes  upon 
the  origins  of  Christianity,  as  it  does  upon  everything 
else.  But,  for  our  present  purpose,  we  have  nothing  to 
do  with  any  of  its  speculations.  Our  business  is  with 
the  stream  itself.  Theology  assumes  for  its  postulate, 
that  the  origin  of  all  life  is  in  God,  —  that  is,  in  a  source 
that  is  everywhere  present  and  always  giving  forth,  in- 


THE   STUDY  OF   CHRISTIAN   HISTORY.  Xlll 

exhaustible,  infinite,  essentially  one  with  perfect  wis- 
dom, justice,  and  love. 

Just  how  these  attributes  of  the  Infinite  Life  were 
embodied  for  their  earthly  manifestation  in  the  person 
of  the  Founder  of  Christianity,  has  been  the  most  fruit- 
ful ground  of  speculation  and  controversy.  But,  ante- 
rior to  all  these  speculations,  it  is  well  for  us  to  have  as 
distinct  a  conception  as  we  can  of  that  large  historic 
life  which  we  denominate  Christian.  And  this,  not  by 
theoretical  distinctions  or  abstract  definitions,  but  by 
seeing  it  "manifest  in  the  flesh":  that  is,  not  merely 
in  the  "one  greater  Man"  (as  Milton  calls  him),  of 
whom  that  phrase  was  first  used,  but  (as  Leo  the  Great 
interprets)  in  all  of  the  innumerable  company  who  have 
received  and  have  worthily  shared  that  life. 

Accordingly,  the  right  study  of  Christian  history  con- 
sists mainly  in  the  study  of  moral  forces  :  that  is, 
forces  which  bear  on  men  on  the  side  of  character  and 
conduct.  Of  itself,  state  it  as  simply  as  we  will,  this 
means  a  great  deal.  Conduct,  saj's  Matthew  Arnold, 
is  at  least  three  quarters  of  human  life ;  and  when  to 
this  we  add  character  which  it  springs  from,  and  aspi- 
ration which  makes  its  ideal,  and  the  education  of  con- 
science which  gives  its  law,  we  have  pretty  nearly 
mapped  out  the  whole  field  of  practical  religion  as 
opposed  to  the  purely  theoretic. 

Now  we  want  a  phrase  which  denotes  sharply  that 
characteristic  of  religion  most  important  to  consider  as 
affecting  human  life.  Such  a  phrase,  for  example,  is 
"  enthusiasm  of  humanity,"  which  we  find  in  Ecce  Homo, 
as  best  describing  the  religion  of  Jesus  and  his  disci- 
ples. But  it  seems  to  me  that  the  higher  and  broader 
phrase  ethical  passion  denotes  better  the  quality  I 
mean.      Whatever  else   religion   may  include,  at   any 


XIV  INTRODUCTION. 

rate  it  means  this.  A  strong  and  victorious  religious 
movement  takes  place,  when  the  ethical  passion  I  speak 
of  is  blended  with  the  mode  of  thinking  dominant  at  a 
given  time.  Indeed,  a  better  definition  could  hardly  be 
given  of  an  historical  religion  than  the  coincidence  of 
these  two,  originating  with  some  crisis  in  human  af- 
fairs. The  passion  itself  is  the  essential  motive  force : 
its  association  with  one  or  another  form  of  dogma  seems 
almost  pure  accident. 

I  do  not,  of  course,  claim  that  this  noblest  of  the 
passions  is  peculiar  to  Christianity  among  the  religions 
of  the  world.  In  its  elements,  it  certainly  is  not.  In  de- 
gree, at  least,  I  think  it  is,  —  certainly  in  that  line  by 
which,  through  Puritanism  up  to  primitive  Christian- 
it}',  we  trace  our  own  spiritual  descent.  As  to  this, 
however,  we  need  assume  nothing  at  all.  Christian^ 
at  all  events  has  shown  itself  in  the  world  primarily  as 
a  moral  force.  It  is  this  quality  in  it  that  we  have  first 
of  all  to  keep  in  view  in  the  different  phases  of  it  we 
shall  meet.  Its  creed,  its  symbols,  its  institutions,  are 
what  they  are  in  the  histoiy  of  mankind  because  they 
are  expressions  of  that  force.  They  are  superficial ; 
the  ethical  passion  the}r  embody  is  fundamental. 

It  shows  itself  in  many  wrys  :  with  Paul,  in  earnest 
contrition  and  conviction  of  sin ;  with  Howard,  in  the 
deep  sense  of  evil  and  suffering  among  men  ;  with  Savo- 
narola, in  flaming  wrath  against  hypocrisy  and  injustice  ; 
with  mystic  and  monastic,  in  rude  austerities  or  ecstatic 
fervors.  It  appears  in  the  patient  pondering  of  moral 
problems,  with  the  Schoolmen  ;  in  willing  and  brave 
self-sacrifice,  with  the  Pilgrims  ;  in  endurance  of  perse- 
cution, with  the  Martyrs  ;  in  heroism  of  battle,  with  the 
Covenanters  ;  in  recoil  from  a  corrupt  societ}',  with  the 
Anchorites  ;  in  rapturous  visions  of  a  reign  of  holiness, 


THE   STUDY   OF   CHRISTIAN   HISTORY.  XV 

with  the  Saints.  In  all  these  shapes  that  intenser  form 
of  moral  emotion  which  we  rightly  name  the  ethical 
passion  may  appear :  its  characteristic  being,  not 
merely  that  conscience,  as  against  pleasure  or  gain,  is 
taken  for  the  law  of  life  —  which  it  has  in  common  with 
the  Stoics ;  but  that  conscience,  so  obeyed,  becomes  a 
source  of  enthusiasm,  a  ground  of  faith  and  hope,  an  in- 
spiration of  the  will.  As  what  Mr.  Arnold  calls  "the 
lyrical  cry "  is  not  only  a  mark  of  genuine  poetiy, 
but  makes  the  tone  of  true  devotion,  and  so  is  the  voice 
of  religion  in  the  way  of  emotional  fervor,  appealing  to 
the  Infinite  ;  so  the  ethical  passion  I  have  named  is  the 
veiy  heart  of  true  religion  on  its  man  ward  side,  and  is 
the  characteristic  we  have  chiefly  to  seek  and  verif}'  in 
the  stud}'  of  its  history. 

This  suggests,  again,  the  direction  our  stucty  should 
take  :  namely,  that  its  field  chiefly  lies  in  the  lives  and 
thought  of  individual  men.  A  great  deal  has  been 
said  of  the  philosophy  of  history,  and  of  the  stud}"  of 
histoiy  as  a  science.  But,  in  much  of  this  discussion, 
what  is  after  all  the  chief  glory,  interest,  and  value  of 
historical  study  is  apt  to  be  overlooked.  History  studied 
as  science  tends  to  degenerate  at  once  to  anthropology  ; 
studied  as  history,  its  great  value  will  be  found  in  its 
appeal  to  imagination,  its  widening  of  the  s}'inpatlrv,  and 
its  education  of  the  moral  sense.  Of  course,  we  want 
to  know  all  that  can  be  given  in  the  wide  view  and  nice 
distinctions  of  philosoplry,  in  the  accurate  terms  and 
orderly  arrangement  of  science.  And  we  need  not  dis- 
pute whether  either  of  them  is  or  is  not  a  more  valuable 
study  than  history  proper  in  itself.  But,  in  respect  of 
our  immediate  purpose,  they  only  serve  as  a  framework 
for  the  picture  ;  the}r  merely  outline  the  conditions  under 
which  the  study  of  history  is  to  be  had. 


XVI  INTRODUCTION. 

This  is  the  stucty  of  human  life  itself,  —  its  action  and 
its  passion  ;  of  life  on  its  personal,  suffering,  dramatic, 
rejoicing,  heroic  side ;  of  its  sin  and  holiness,  its  error 
and  its  strength,  its  struggle  and  its  grief.  Nothing, 
in  fact,  is  more  dramatic  than  the  life  shown  us  in  the 
field  we  enter,  as  soon  as  we  pierce  beyond  the  veil  that 
distance  of  time  or  strangeness  of  dialect  has  thrown 
about  it.  The  true  way  to  know  the  men  whose  lives 
are  the  history  we  would  learn,  is  to  come  as  close  to 
them  as  the  barriers  of  time,  distance,  and  language  will 
allow ;  to  seek  alwa}Ts  the  original  sources  first,  at  least 
under  the  briefest  guidance  and  exposition ;  never  to 
satisfy  ourselves  with  dissertations,  abridgments,  com- 
pends,  or  "  standard  historians  "  ;  to  listen  to  each  man's 
words,  so  far  as  we  have  ability  or  opportunit}',  in  the 
tongue  he  learned  from  his  mother,  and  talked  with  his 
own  kinsfolk,  and  wrote  with  his  own  pen.  A  single 
page,  read  in  that  way,  brings  us  nearer  to  the  man,  gives 
us  better  (so  to  speak)  the  feel  of  his  pulse,  the  light  of 
his  eye,  and  the  complexion  of  his  face,  than  whole 
chapters  of  commentaiy  and  paraphrase. 

We  have  all  learned,  long  ago,  that  faith  is  a  very 
different  thing  from  opinion.  Yet  we  do  not  alwa}S 
reflect  how  wrongly  men's  historical  judgments  are 
colored  by  their  opinions,  or  how  shallow  and  poor  those 
judgments  often  are,  from  the  mere  lack  of  power  to 
comprehend  —  we  might  even  say  pardon  —  any  very 
strong  and  sincere  conviction  at  all.  Thus  of  Gibbon  — 
so  masterlv  in  grasp,  so  unwearied  in  research,  so  sub- 
tile in  suggestion,  our  indispensable  daily  companion 
and  guide  in  a  large  part  of  the  field  we  have  to  investi- 
gate—  the  instances  are  rare  in  which  he  has  not  done 
wrong  to  the  topic  or  the  character  he  was  treating,  and 
let  down  the  moral  tone  of  a  great  man  or  a  great  event, 


THE   STUDY   OF   CHRISTIAN   HISTORY.  XV11 

such  as  the  record  fairly  gives,  by  his  strange  incapacity 
of  historic  sympathy.  80  that,  in  a  ver}-  large  part  of 
it,  —  not  only  in  his  famous  chapters  on  early  Chris- 
tianity, but  in  his  treatment  of  each  critical  epoch  or 
heroic  life,  —  his  work,  indispensable  for  its  outlines  and 
its  facts,  is  a  masterly  and  very  perfect  model  of  what 
our  study  of  the  histoiy  ought  not  to  be. 

Again,  we  must  be  clear  of  that  besetting  sin  of  theo- 
logians, a  controversial  motive.  We  are  not  pledged, 
in  any  sense,  to  uphold  one  set  of  opinions,  or  disparage 
others.  Our  true  business  is  to  understand,  if  we  can, 
the  men  who  held  them,  and  why  they  held  them.  The 
world  of  thought  and  belief  has  so  shifted  in  all  its 
bearings,  that  we  can  never  be  quite  sure  we  have  the 
mind  of  the  earl}'  age ;  while  the  world  of  passion  and 
motive  remains  fundamentally  the  same.  Very  good 
men  have  held  in  honest}*  of  heart  opinions  wholly  false 
and  shocking  to  us.  Their  thin  ghosts  do  not  flit  before 
our  bar  for  judgment.  Na}*,  when  those  men  lived,  they 
were  drawn  03*  the  tragic  and  terrible  logic  of  their 
opinions  to  acts  in  our  view  inconceivably  hateful.  In 
all  histor}*  there  is  perhaps  nothing  quite  so  awful  as  the 
religious  wars,  the  infernal  tortures  of  Inquisition  and 
dragonnade,  the  frightful  persecutions  of  mere  opinion, 
deliberately  inflicted,  for  centuries,  in  the  name  of  faith  ; 
so  that  the  very  phrase  "  act  of  faith,"  translated  into 
Spanish,  is  perhaps  of  all  human  phrases  ghastliest  in  its 
suggestion.  I  have  no  more  the  will  than  the  power  to 
exclude  these  horrors  from  our  field,  for  the  sake  of  a 
serener  view.  Humanity  does  well  to  hate  the  name 
and  curse  the  memory  of  them.  But  our  task,  even  for 
these,  is  to  see  them  in  their  causes  ;  to  trace  how  they 
were  linked  in  fatally  with  the  train  of  opinions  and 
events  ;  to  see  how  bad  men  could  have  found  means  to 


xviii  INTRODUCTION". 

bring  them  to  pass,  and  how  good  men  could  possibly 
have  been  led  to  consent  to  them  as  a  pardonable  alter- 
native from  something  worse. 

A  very  large  part  of  our  histoiy  is  the  record  of  con- 
troversies, in  which  we  have  no  occasion  whatever  to 
take  sides  as  partisans.  Our  business  is  rather  to  see, 
if  we  can,  how  each  side  was  an  element  in  the  necessary 
evolution ;  and  how  a  gain  in  mind,  morals,  or  society 
is  brought  about,  not  by  sudden  victories  of  the  truer 
opinion,  but  by  the  very  obstinate  conflict  itself,  in  which 
each  party  fights  toughly,  whether  for  the  gold  or  the 
silver  side  of  the  shield  of  truth.  We  have  our  own 
battles  to  fight ;  and  we  cannot  afford  to  revive  the 
passions  of  those  ancient  ones. 

A  word  of  the  periods  into  which  the  history  naturally 
falls.  The  main  points  of  departure  —  the  nodal  points, 
so  to  speak,  marking  most  visibly  the  coincidence  of  the 
spiritual  and  secular  evolution  —  are  most  conveniently 
taken  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  century,  and  at  the  end 
of  the  fifteenth.  The  three  periods  so  given,  consid- 
ered in  reference  to  the  type  of  Christian  civilization 
before  spoken  of,  may  be  called  the  period  of  its  struggle 
for  existence,  of  its  dominance  in  a  definite  historic  form, 
and  of  its  differentiation  or  expansion.  The  first  ex- 
tends from  the  origin  of  Christianity,  through  the  time 
of  its  conflict  with  Classic  paganism  on  one  hand,  and 
Barbaric  paganism  on  the  other,  down  to  the  founding 
of  the  Christian  empire  of  Charlemagne.  The  second 
extends  through  what  is  called  the  Middle  Age  of  Euro- 
pean history,  the  period  of  feudal  society,  of  the  cru- 
sades, of  the  Holy  Apostolic  Church  dominant  under  the 
great  popes  and  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  dominant  under 
the  great  imperial  houses,  down  to  and  including  the 
revival  of  art  and  learning,  and  the  period  of  the  great 


THE   STUDY    OF   CHRISTIAN    HISTORY.  XIX 

discoveries  which  initiated  the  broader  life  of  the  mod- 
ern world.  The  third  begins  with  the  controversies  of 
the  Protestant  Reformation,  and  follows  its  results  in  the 
liberalizing  of  thought,  the  development  of  speculative 
philosophy  and  scientific  criticism,  the  vast  growth  of 
natural  science  (far  more  important  to  us  in  its  effect 
on  men's  habit  of  thought  than  in  its  wealth  of  fact  or 
its  practical  skill) ,  the  great  movements  of  modern  so- 
ciety and  politics  of  the  revolutionary  period,  in  which 
we  are  living  now. 

Naturally  and  rightly,  these  last  are  of  vastly  greater 
consequence  to  us  than  anything  in  the  past.  More- 
over, they  are  precisely  the  issues  to  which  the  great 
evolution  of  religious  life  in  the  past  has  conducted 
us.  But  no  stage  of  it  need  be  followed  in  the  spirit 
of  dogmatists,  pedants,  or  archaeologists.  The  life- 
stream  whose  course  we  are  endeavoring  to  trace 
flows  through  channels,  takes  on  forms  and  qualities, 
that  enter  deeply  into  the  spirit  of  our  own  life.  Not 
only,  then,  the  echoes  of  the  past  are  to  be  heard,  but 
its  footsteps  traced,  and  its  spirit  felt,  and  its  lessons 
heeded,  on  the  spot  where  we  stand,  and  in  the  moment 
of  time  when  we  breathe.  For  us,  its  earliest  tradition 
is  still  alive.  The  record  contained  in  so  maivy  ponder- 
ous volumes  is  not  an  antiquarian  curiosit}',  like  those 
title-deeds  lately  turned  up  in  bricks  and  tiles  of  Neb- 
uchadnezzar's time  ;  but  is  like  a  merchant's  ledger, 
which  lies  always  open  to  record  the  transactions  of 
to-day. 

The  antiquarian  ma}'  learn  facts  and  dates ;  but  facts 
and  dates  are  not  histoiy.  They  are  at  best  the 
"raw  materials,"  which  must  be  "cooked"  (as  our 
friend  in  the  stoiy-book  sagely  says)  before  the}'  are 
fit  food  for  the  human  mind.     It  is  the  very  business 


XX  INTRODUCTION. 

of  histor}T  to  turn  dead  facts  into  live  truths ;  to  assort, 
co-ordinate,  arrange  them,  find  out  their  bearing  on 
one  another,  and  their  relation  to  the  life  they  cover,  — 
often,  it  is  true,  as  tombstones  coA^er  the  forms  once 
warm  with  eager  life.  It  is  not  that  we  disparage  facts. 
On  the  Contrary,  the  mind  in  search  of  truth  hungers 
and  thirsts  for  them.  But  one  must  not  be  mistaken 
for  the  other.  A  hundred  thousand  facts  will  veiy 
likely  go  to  the  making  of  a  single  truth. 

And  for  method,  the  simplest  is  the  best :  that  is, 
to  fix  a  few  marked  lives  and  dates,  "  as  nails  in  a  sure 
place."  A  very  few,  well  fixed,  will  give  us  the  lati- 
tude and  longitude  of  our  facts,  and  save  them  from 
being  mislaid  or  lost.  I  once  watched  an  artist  be- 
ginning to  draw  a  portrait.  He  measured  with  a  straight 
stick  one  or  two  dimensions,  marked  them  on  his  panel, 
took  rapidly  the  bearings  with  his  eye,  made  a  few  swift 
strokes  ;  and,  almost  in  less  time  than  it  takes  to  tell,  m}T 
mother's  face,  dim  and  faint,  began  to  be  shadowed  out 
under  his  trained  hand,  which  hours  and  days  of  patient 
skill  would  be  needed  to  complete,  but  with  features  and 
expression  already  there.  In  some  such  way,  if  not  with 
an  artist's  skill,  3-et  with  his  patient  accuracy-,  we  may 
so  outline  this  vast  and  magnificent  field  of  our  inquiry 
as  never  to  lose  from  memory  the  features  and  expres- 
sion of  that  life  which  we  accept  as  a  continual  and  yet 
unfinished  revelation  in  the  flesh  of  the  Universal  Life. 


AUTHOEITIES. 

Besides  the  references  in  the  margin,  some  mention  of  a 
few  of  the  chief  authorities  may  be  useful  to  the  student  or 
general  reader.  These  are  of  three  classes,  —  Original  Docu- 
ments, accessible,  in  general,  only  in  large  libraries  ;  Standard 
Historians,  whose  works,  in  English,  may  be  procured  easily 
and  at  moderate  cost ;  and  Encyclopaedias. 

Of  original  documents  the  most  serviceable  are  — 

The  Fathers  :  especially  the  "  Ante-Nicene  Christian  Li- 
brary "  (Clark,  Edinburgh,  22  vols.),  to  which  are  added  in  the 
same  style  several  of  the  writings  of  Augustine,  including  the 
DfrCivitate  Dei;  and  the  "Library  of  the  Fathers"  (Parker, 
Oxford,  17  vols.,  one  of  the  fruits  of  the  Tractarian  movement), 
including  several  volumes  of  Chrysostom.  To  these  should  be 
added,  the  Greek  Ecclesiastical  Historians  —  Eusebius,  Socrates, 
Sozomen,  Theodoret,  and  Evagrius  —  coming  down  to  near  the 
end  of  the  sixth  century  (Bagster,  London,  6  vols.).'  Several 
brief  compends  of  the  Fathers  have  been  prepared  for  English 
readers,  of  which  the  most  useful  promises  to  be  that  compiled 
by  the  Rev.  George  A.  Jackson  (Applet on,  New  York). 

Below  the  date  of  Augustine,  and  before  the  period  of  the 
Eeformation,  there  is  little  accessible  in  English  except  a  por- 
tion of  the  works  of  Anselm,  and  some  of  the  mystical  writers 
of  the  later  Middle  Age.  For  the  greater  part  of  this  interval, 
of  just  eleven  hundred  years,  the  great  collection,  indispensable 
to  the  uses  of  the  student,  is  — 

Migne  :  Patrologia,  Greek  and  Latin,  a  complete  library 
of  Christian  literature,  ecclesiastical  and  philosophical.  The 
Greek  writers,  with  Latin  translation  in  parallel  columns,  fill 
161  vols.,  large  octavo,  and  extend  to  the  destruction  of  the 
Greek  Empire  in  1453.  The  Latin  writers  embrace  nearly 
fifteen  hundred  names,  from  Tertullian  to  Innocent  III.  inclu- 
sive, and  are  contained  in  221  vols.,  four  of  which  consist  of 


XX11  AUTHORITIES. 

full  and  elaborate  Indices.  The  plates  of  a  large  part  of  this 
splendid  collection  were  destroyed  by  fire,  but  will  soon  be 
replaced,  if  they  have  not  been  already.     (Paris,  1844-1864.) 

Of  later  writers  of  ecclesiastical  Latin,  the  complete  works 
of  Albertus  Magnus,  Thomas  Aquinas,  Bonaventura,  and  Duns 
Scotus,  with  single  writings  of  Eoger  Bacon,  Eaymond  Lully, 
and  Occam,  may  be  found  in  the  Harvard  College  Library. 

Among  original  authorities  may  also  be  included  — 

Mansi  :  a  complete  History  of  Councils,  in  31  vols,  folio, 
down  to  and  including  the  Council  of  Florence,  1439  (Florence, 
1759-1798). 

Baronius  :  Annals  of  the  Papacy  in  19  large  folio  vols., 
down  to  the  election  of  Innocent  III.  in  1198  (Lucca,  1738- 
1746).     This  great  work  is  continued  by  — 

Katn aldus  :  15  vols.,  extending  to  the  election  of  Pius  V. 
in  1566  (Lucca,  1747-1756). 

All  of  the  above  have  been  constantly  in  use  in  the  prepar- 
ation of  the  following  chapters.  The  curious  student  will  also 
desire  to  know  something  of  the  Catholic  historian  Fleury,  the 
Jansenist  Tillemont  (both  translated  into  English),  and  the 
great  work  of  the  Magdeburg  "Centuriators."  He  may  even 
find  advantage  in  exploring  the  wealth  of  Catholic  legend  in  the 
prodigious  tomes  of  the  Bollandist  Acta  Sanctorum  on  one 
hand  ;  or,  on  the  other,  in  the  Monumenta  Germanica  of  Pertz, 
which  gives  here  and  there  the  most  entertaining  glimpses  we 
can  find  into  the  obscurity  of  the  Dark  Ages..  Portions  of 
this  latter  are  conveniently  included  in  several  volumes  —  as 
the  Monumenta  Carolina  (Charlemagne),  and  the  Monumenta 
Gregoriana  (Hildebrand)  —  edited  by  Jaffe  (Berlin,  1864-73). 

Of  the  more  recent  standard  historians  the  most  useful  to 
the  ordinary  student  are  — 

Gieseler  :  5  vols.,  four  containing  the  completed  history 
down  to  1648,  and  the  fifth  consisting  of  Lectures  edited  since 
the  author's  death.  The  special  value  of  this  work  consists  in 
the  citations  from  original  authorities  in  the  Notes,  which 
make  at  least  three  quarters  of  the  bulk  of  the  entire  work, 
and  render  it  far  more  serviceable  to  a  student  of  theology  than 
any  of  the  others.     The  best  edition,  in  English,  is  that  pre- 


AUTHORITIES.  Xxiii 

pared  by  H.  B.  Smith  (Harper,  New  York).  An  excellent 
translation  of  the  first  three  volumes,  by  Francis  Cunningham, 
was  published  in  1836  (Carey,  Philadelphia),  from  the  third 
German  edition.  In  the  first  volume,  however,  important 
changes  have  been  made  in  the  later  revision. 

Neander  :  5  vols.,  translated  by  Joseph  Torrey,  carrying 
the  history  down  to  1430.  This  is  heavy  and  confused  in  nar- 
rative, and  has  no  perspective  of  political  events,  or  the  general 
course  of  Christian  civilization  ;  but  it  is,  on  the  other  hand, 
of  the  highest  value  to  the  student  of  speculative  theology  and 
church  life  (Crocker  &  Brewster,  Boston). 

Schaff  :  of  which  the  first  volume  of  a  new  recast  has  just 
been  published,  covering  the  first  century.  This  promises  to 
be  a  very  labored  and  bulky  history,  of  chief  value  in  the  study 
of  Christian  antiquities  and  dogma  (Scribner,  New  York). 

AlzoG:  the  best  recent  Catholic  historian,  in  3  thick  vols., 
fair  and  moderate  in  spirit  (Clarke,  Cincinnati). 

The  most  interesting  and  abundant  resource  for  the  early 
legendary  history  of  Christianity  is  the  French  Catholic  work 
of  Rohrbacher  (Paris,  29  vols.  8vo),  of  which  a  new  and  im- 
proved edition  in  12  vols.  4to  is  now  in  course  of  publication 
(Palme,  Paris).  To  Catholic  authorities  may  be  added  the 
charming  volumes  of  Ozanam,  and  Count  Montalembert's 
"  Monks  of  the  West "  (7  vols.),  which  has  been  translated  into 
English  (Blackwood,  Edinburgh). 

There  is  also  publishing  (Fischbacher,  Paris)  an  excellent 
history  in  French,  from  the  point  of  view  of  liberal  Christian 
scholarship,  by  Professor  Chastel,  of  Geneva,  to  be  completed 
in  5  vols.  Kenan's  great  work  on  the  Origins  of  Christianity, 
in  7  vols.,  extending  through  the  reign  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  is 
too  well  known  to  need  further  notice.  Robertson  (in  8  vols.) 
is  one  of  the  most  useful  of  the  recent  histories,  coming  down 
to  the  time  of  the  Reformation.  And,  for  the  first  ten  centu- 
ries, a  compact  and  excellent  text-book,  well  illustrated,  may 
be  found  in  a  single  volume,  prepared  by  Philip  Smith  (Harper, 
New  York).  The  single-volume  histories  of  Haase  and  of  Kurtz 
are  convenient  for  reference,  but  too  limited  and  technical  in 
their  aim  to  help  much  in  the  study  attempted  here. 


XXIV  AUTHORITIES. 

To  ecclesiastical  historians  proper  should  be  added  the  fol- 
lowing, of  more  general  and  popular  interest :  — 

Milman  :  History  of  Christianity  to  the  Downfall  of  Pagan- 
ism (3  vols.),  and  History  of  Latin  Christianity  to  the  Pontifi- 
cate of  Nicholas  V.,  1447  (8  vols.).  For  admirable  scholarship, 
fluent  narrative,  and  literary  feeling,  this  makes  the  best  of 
church-histories  for  the  general  reader.  The  narrative  is  often 
crowded  and  confusing  in  the  later  portion,  the  political  view 
is  comparatively  feeble  and  dim,  and  as  a  history  of  thought 
the  work  is  disappointing  (Sheldon,  New  York). 

Greenwood  :  "  Cathedra  Petri,  a  Political  History  of  the 
Great  Latin  Patriarchate,"  extending  to  the  close  of  the  Great 
Schism,  about  1420.  An  exceedingly  vigorous  and  able  narra- 
tive of  events  in  their  political  bearing  chiefly,  very  full  and 
invaluable  for  the  times  especially  of  Charlemagne,  Hildebrand, 
and  Innocent  III.  In  the  later  portion  it  is  simply  a  brief 
summary.  Allowance  has  often  to  be  made  for  the  author's 
vehement  hostility  to  the  political  system  of  the  papacy,  and 
as  a  history  of  thought,  or  of  civilization  at  large,  the  work  has 
little  value.  The  author  is  a  jurist,  not  a  theologian.  (Dick- 
inson &  Higham,  London:  6  vols.,  1856-1872). 

Symonds  :  Rennaissance  in  Italy,  just  completed,  in  5  vols., 
is  not  only  a  brilliant  and  interesting  work  in  itself,  but  is  in- 
dispensable for  the  study  of  the  two  centuries  preceding  the 
Reformation  (Smith,  Elder,  &  Co.,  London). 

The  historical  student  will  also  desire  to  consult  the  most 
elaborate  work  of  Gfrorer  on  Hildebrand  (7  vols.),  and  Rau- 
mer's  great  history  of  the  House  of  Hohenstaufen  (6  vols.). 

For  the  development  of  speculative  thought  in  its  bearing 
on  theology  the  most  serviceable  work  is  that  of  Ueberweg, 
especially  valuable  for  its  full  bibliography  and  literary  details, 
of  which  a  translation  has  been  prepared  by  Professor  Morris 
(Scribner,  New  York,  2  vols.). 

For  the  period  including  and  following  the  Reformation  the 
most  valuable  resource  will  be  found  in  works  of  general  his- 
tory, philosophy,  and  literature.  Special  ecclesiastical  histories 
of  this  period  —  except  of  single  groups  of  events,  as  of  the  times 
of  Luther,  the  Council  of  Trent,  and  the  School  of  Port  Royal 
—  are  mostly  delusive  and  unsatisfactory. 


AUTHOKITIES.  XXV 

Of  Encyclopaedias  and  similar  works  of  reference  may  be 
mentioned  the  following :  — 

Herzog  :  this  great  work  is  now  publishing  in  an  enlarged 
edition  (Herzog- Plitt),  to  fill  about  25  vols.  (Hinrich,  Leipzig). 
It  is  invaluable  not  only  as  a  library  of  ecclesiastical  learning, 
but  as  a  critical  and  authoritative  exposition  of  leading  systems 
of  philosophy.  A  condensed  translation  is  announced,  under 
the  editorship  of  Professor  Schaff  (Scribner,  New  York,  3  vols.), 
the  first  volume  of  which  is  lately  published. 

McClintock  &  Strong  :  a  Biblical  and  Ecclesiastical  Cy- 
clopsedia,  complete  in  10  vols.  The  great  number  of  titles,  in- 
cluding ecclesiastical  biographies,  and  the  very  complete  history 
of  Protestant  sects  —  to  say  nothing  of  the  biblical,  dogmatic, 
and  expository  material  —  make  this,  doubtless,  the  most  con- 
venient existing  work  of  general  reference  for  the  field  it  covers 
(Harper,  New  York,  1874-1881). 

Smith  :  Dictionary  of  Christian  Antiquities  (2  vols.),  and 
Dictionary  of  Christian  Biography  (first  eight  centuries :  4 
vols.,  of  which  two  are  already  published,  including  the  letter 
H).  These  works  are  on  the  same  scale  of  completeness,  thor- 
oughness, and  ample  learning,  with  the  well-known  series  of 
Classical  Dictionaries  prepared  under  the  same  editorship 
(Murray,  London  ;  Little,  Brown,  &  Co.,  Boston). 


EARLY  CHRISTIANITY. 


I. 

THE  MESSIAH  AND  THE  CHRIST. 

OUK  first  task,  in  approaching  the  study  of  Chris- 
tianity as  an  event  and  a  vital  force  in  history, 
is  to  see  it  on  the  side  of  Judaism,  out  of  whose  soil 
it  sprang;  and  to  trace  —  at  present  in  its  purely 
historical  or  human  aspect  —  the  connection  between 
the  old  religious  order  and  the  new.  This  is  best 
seen  in  the  transition,  in  religious  history,  from  the 
name  Messiah,  with  all  that  it  denotes  as  the  cul- 
minating of  the  old  dispensation,  to  the  name  Christ, 
with  all  that  it  denotes  as  the  inspiration  of  the 
new. 

No  revolution  that  we  know  in  the  affairs  of  man- 
kind, especially  in  its  spiritual  history,  has  been  so 
significant  as  that  suggested  in  the'  connotation  of 
these  two  titles,  of  which  each  is  a  literal  translation 
of  the  other.  One  brings  before  us  the  passionate, 
ever-baffled,  and  finally  most  disastrous  hope  of  a 
perishing  people,  —  the  narrow,  intense,  fierce  patriot- 
ism, that  had  its  boundaries  sharply  defined  in  the  little 
state  of  Palestine ;  the  other,  a  world-wide  spiritual 


2  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

empire,  seated  on  the  deepest  foundations  of  faith  and 
reverence,  and  showing  the  ideal  side  of  a  manifold, 
rich,  powerful,  and  proud  civilization,  which  has  as 
yet  no  ascertainable  limit  of  duration. 

While  the  uame  Messiah  is  at  best  the  title  of  a 
hoped-for  prince  who  might  do  for  Jerusalem  what  the 
empire  of  the  Caesars  did  for  Rome,  —  that  is,  estab- 
lish it  as  the  seat  of  enduring  dominion  founded  on 
"  righteousness  "  in  the  Jewish  sense  of  that  word,  as 
the  other  was  built  upon  the  Roman  Law,  —  the  name 
Christ  has  come,  by  successive  changes  and  enlarge- 
ments of  its  meaning,  to  be  the  title  of  the  spiritual 
or  ideal  leader  of  humanity.  Nay,  so  instant  and  so 
marked  was  this  transition,  as  soon  as  the  name  had 
passed  from  the  local  dialect  into  that  Greek  which 
was  the  tongue  of  all  known  thought  and  culture,  that 
Paul  (who  did  more  than  all  other  men  to  bring  it 
about)  already  uses  that  name  to  mean,  not  simply  the 
Person,  however  exalted  and  revered,  but  a  Force 
purely  spiritual  and  ideal,  — "  Christ  the  power  of 
God  and  the  wisdom  of  God." 

It  belongs  more  properly  to  an  appreciation  .of  the 
life  and  work  of  Paul  to  consider  this  transition  as  it 
looks  to  the  future,  and  opens  the  way  to  the  new, 
large  development  of  a  religion  of  Humanity.  It  is 
our  immediate  task  to  consider  it  as  it  looks  to  the 
past,  and  connects  itself  with  the  history  of  a  pecu- 
liar people. 

That  wonderful  Messianic  hope,  which  in  the  ways 
of  history  was  the  indispensable  preparation  for  the 
advent  of  a  gospel  preached  to  every  creature,  emer- 
ges amidst  the  desperate  struggle  of  a  little  colony 


THE   CHRONOLOGICAL  OUTLOOK.  3 

in  Judaea  to  defend  its  altar  and  temple  from  the 
stranger,  and  saves  that  struggle  from  despair.  We 
need  not  go  over  here  the  story  of  that  time  which  we 
call  the  Maccabaean  period.  It  is,  or  should  be,  toler- 
ably familiar.  We  can  at  best  attempt  to  make  rea- 
sonably clear  one  or  two  points  of  view,  which  may 
help  us  understand  its  bearing  on  the  impending 
revolution. 

Standing  at  the  date  of  the  gospel  history,  we  seem 
to  have  fairly  firm  ground  on  an  island  in  the  great 
ocean  of  the  past,  or  at  least  to  be  swinging  at  a  toler- 
ably sure  anchorage  among  its  restless  waves.  The 
prophecy  of  Malachi,  with  its  abrupt  menace  of  "  the 
great  and  dreadful  day  of  the  Lord," —  the  last  head- 
land laid  down  on  the  chart  that  most  of  us  have 
sailed  by,  —  is  four  hundred  years  away :  about  as  far 
as  from  us  the  conquest  of  the  Eastern  Empire  by  the 
Turks,  the  Wars  of  the  Eoses,  the  break-up  of  feudal- 
ism in  France  under  Louis  XL,  the  revival  of  letters 
and  arts  in  Italy,  a  few  years  before  the  discovery  of 
America  by  Columbus.  A  few  dates  like  these  may 
serve  to  help  our  sluggish  imagination,  and  show 
what  we  mean  by  historical  perspective.  Near  mid- 
way, again,  to  where  we  are  standing,  is  the  glorious 
revolt  of  the  Maccabees,  another  point  in  the  per- 
spective to  be  fixed  as  firmly  as  we  may :  not  quite 
as  far  away  as  the  Commonwealth  in  England,  and 
the  Thirty  Years'  War  in  Germany.  In  other  words 
to  the  contemporaries  of  Jesus  the  hero  of  the  strug- 
gle was  somewhat  nearer  than  Oliver  Cromwell  is  to 
us,  and  the  visions  of  Daniel  were  about  as  near  as 
Paradise  Lost. 


4  THE  MESSIAH  AND   THE   CHEIST. 

I  am  probably  not  mistaken  in  thinking  that  this 
comparison  of  dates  startles  us  a  little  by  bringing 
the  events  so  close.  But,  in  fact,  they  are  much 
closer  than  that.  If  oar  daily  walk  took  us  past 
Whitehall,  or  a  stroll  into  the  next  village  to  the 
hillside  where  Hampden  fell,  the  events  of  that  time 
would  come  incomparably  nearer  to  our  imagination. 
How  was  it,  then,  with  the  Jews  of  Palestine  in  the 
time  of  Jesus,  who  had  no  other  memories,  who 
knew  no  other  landmarks,  whose  only  science  and 
only  dream  lay  within  the  strict  limits  of  the  inter- 
pretation of  the  Scripture  that  embodied,  confirmed, 
and  illustrated  their  one  only  hope  ?  Herod's  wife 
was  great-grandchild  of  the  hero's  nephew;  and 
Herod's  handiwork  was  there,  unfinished,  before  their 
eyes.  The  aged  Simeon  might  as  a  child  (to  take  the 
average  of  several  learned  guesses)  have  known  the 
writer  of  Enoch,  and  he  the  writer  of  the  visions  of 
Daniel.  Three  generations  might  thus  touch  hands 
across  the  whole  space  that  separates  the  Old  and  the 
New.*  The  chasm  is  apt  to  look  abrupt  and  impass- 
able, like  the  gorge  at  Niagara;  still,  it  is  not  so 
very  wide  but  that  we  may  fly  a  cord  across,  and  that 
shall  carry  a  strand,  and  that  a  cable,  and  the  gulf 
is  bridged. 

Looking  now  a  little  more  carefully  at  the  point  of 
time  which  we  have  succeeded  in  bringing  so  near, 
we  see  that  the  stream  of  national,  or  rather  race 

*  Thus  I  recollect  as  a  child  going  to  see  an  old  man  who  had 
been  an  officer  in  the  "  French  and  Indian  War  "  (1756-1763) ;  and 
he,  by  fair  possibility,  might  have  known  some  one  who  had  seen 
the  execution  of  Charles  I. 


THREE   STREAMS    OF   JEWISH   LIFE.  5 

life,  flows  in  three  pretty  well  defined  channels,  —  in 
fact,  ever  since  the  time  of  the  earlier  dispersion  and. 
the  return  of  the  pilgrim  colony  to  Jerusalem,  almost 
six  hundred  years  ago.  In  Egypt  that  stream  is 
widening  out  towards  the  placid  lake  of  speculative 
philosophy,  which  we  call  the  new  platonism  of  Philo, 
—  a  great  reservoir,  which  was  pumped  abundantly 
long  afterwards  into  the  sluiceways  of  Christian  the- 
ology, to  spread  and  dilute  the  river  of  the  water  of  life 
till  it  could  float  the  heavy-laden  bark  of  St.  Peter. 
Eastward  in  Babylon  the  stream  loses  itself,  as  it  were, 
in  wide  marshes,  where  it  breeds  in  course  of  time 
that  monstrous  growth  of  water-weed  and  tangle,  with 
flowers  interspersed  of  rare  and  curious  perfume, 
which  we  call  the  Babylonish  legend,  or  the  later 
Talmud. 

With  either  of  these  our  subject  has  very  little  to 
do.  The  learning  which  interprets  the  schools  of 
Jewish  thought  in  Alexandria  has  been  thoroughly 
worked  up,  so  as  to  be  easily  accessible  and  (I  was 
going  to  say)  cheap ;  though  it  can  never  lose  a  certain 
charm  of  its  own  in  the  blandly-flowing  discourse  of 
Philo,  or  a  very  real  interest  to  one  who  cares  to  trace 
the  sources  of  Christian  theology.*  The  more  remote 
and  intricate  study  of  the  Eastern  branch  has  still  less 
present  concern  for  us :  it  belongs  really  to  the 
strange  and  curious  history  of  modern  Judaism,  —  a 

*  Though  Philo  is  called  a  Jew,  and  uses  the  Jewish  scriptures 
as  the  text  of  all  his  fluent  expositions,  his  cast  of  thought  is  so 
entirely  Platonic  or  Grecian,  that  Ewald  (in  a  conversation  I  had 
with  him  some  years  ago)  insisted  that  he  was  to  be  counted  as 
no  Jew  at  all,  but  a  Greek,  quite  outside  the  line  of  Hebrew 
development. 


6  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

side-shoot,  which  has  grown,  independent  of  the  main 
trunk,  into  a  vigorous,  persistent,  fantastic  life  of  its 
own. 

So  our  subject  narrows  down  to  the  course  of  the 
central  stream,  what  we  may  call  the  Palestinian 
life  of  the  Jewish  people.  This  is,  from  the  outset 
down,  intensely  national,  patriotic,  local,  —  yet  none 
the  less  intensely  confident  in  itself,  disdainful  of  all 
life  or  thought  outside,  and  buoyed  through  great  tides 
of  disaster  by  an  immeasurable  hope.  Indeed,  that 
great  miracle  of  patriotic  valor,  the  achieving  of  a 
real  though  brief  independence  by  the  Maccabees  in 
the  face  of  the  splendid  monarchy  of  Syria,  might 
almost  justify  any  extravagance  of  hope. 

We  call  that  hope  Messianic.  In  a  certain  vague 
large  way  it  dates  back  to  the  elder  prophets  of  Juclah, 
Isaiah  and  Micah,  who  give  not  only  hints,  but  splen- 
did pictures  and  symbols,  of  the  Lord's  reign  in  right- 
eousness and  peace.  When  the  flood  of  conquest  had 
flowed  over  the  state  of  Judah,  in  the  long  Captivity 
of  Babylon  those  superb  strains  of  prophecy  had  been 
composed,*  whose  only  fit  interpretation  yet  is  in  the 
gorgeous  and  tender  harmonies  of  Handel's  Messiah. 
But  now  the  prophecy  becomes  distinct,  vivid,  per- 
sonal. Intelligent  criticism  is  well  agreed  in  setting 
the  visions  of  Daniel  at  the  precise  period  of  time 
we  are  dealing  with:  in  fact,  it  narrows  the  date  of 
their  composition  within  some  ten  years,  from  168  to 

*  Isaiah  xl.-lxvi.,  the  "Great  Unknown"  of  the  Captivity 
(Ewald),  sometimes  spoken  of  as  the  younger  Isaiah.  The  title 
"Messiah"  is  here  first  given  to  Cyrus,  as  deliverer  of  the  Jews 
from  Babylon  (xlv.  1). 


SOURCE   OF   THE  MESSIANIC   HOPE.  7 

178  before  the  Christian  era.  These  visions,  doubtless, 
it  is  easiest  for  us  to  bring  before  our  minds  as  songs 
of  patriotic  hope  and  cheer,  in  the  strain  and  stress 
of  a  conflict  all  but  desperate,  rather  than  expound 
them  painfully  in  their  detail,  as  they  apply  to  the 
nearer  past  and  the  immediate  present. 

What  we  have  definitely  to  do  with  them,  for  the 
purpose  now  in  hand,  is  to  see  how  they  fixed — crys- 
tallized, as  it  were — that  patriotic  hope  about  the 
person  of  a  Deliverer,  who  again  was  (like  the  "man 
of  sorrows  "  of  the  Prophet  of  the  Captivity)  hardly 
to  be  distinguished  in  our  criticism  from  Israel  him- 
self in  his  great  agony.  "  I  saw  in  the  night  visions, 
and,  behold,  one  like  a  son  of  man  came  in  the  clouds 
of  heaven,  .  .  .  and  there  was  given  him  dominion, 
and  glory,  and  a  kingdom  :  .  .  .  his  dominion  is  an 
everlasting  dominion,  which  shall  not  pass  away,  and 
his  kingdom  that  which  shall  not  be  destroyed." 
And  again,  "The  kingdom  and  dominion  .  .  .  shall  be 
given  to  the  people  of  the  saints  of  the  Most  High, 
whose  kingdom  is  an  everlasting  kingdom,  and  all 
dominions  shall  serve  and  obey  Him."  * 

Now  this  promise  comes  close  upon  a  description 
which,  by  the  universal  understanding  of  interpreters, 
points  to  the  condition  of  the  East  among  the  suc- 
cessors of  Alexander,  —  that  is,  the  immediate  oppres- 
sors of  the  Jews.  There  is  no  reason  to  doubt  that 
the  coming  of  this  "  Son  of  Man  in  the  clouds  of 
heaven  "  was  passionately  waited  for,  expected,  longed 
for,  to  appear  from  day  to  day,  any  more  than  that 

*  Daniel  vii.  13,  14,  27.  Compare  Stanley  ("Jewish  Church," 
Vol.  III.  p.  385  of  Am.  ed.),  whose  rendering  is  here  followed. 


8  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

Christ's  second  advent  was  daily  expected  in  the 
Apostles'  day,  or  has  been  and  still  is  in  ours.  Most 
likely  some  passing  triumph  of  Judas,  or  Jonathan, 
or  Simon,  the  heroic  brothers,  brought  from  time  to 
time  that  fervent  confidence  and  hope  to  rest  on  them. 
And  again,  the  hope  deferred  lay  always  ready  to  be 
evoked  anew,  and  applied  to  whatever  champion 
seemed  at  the  moment  likely  to  accomplish  the  un- 
reasoning but  fervid  expectation.  Thus,  after  a  cen- 
tury and  a  half  of  disappointment,  it  was  just  as 
ready  to  centre  upon  Herocl  the  Great,  whom  Antony 
and  Augustus  had  set  in  secure  dominion,  —  a  painful 
travesty,  indeed,  of  the  great  Hope,  when  we  think 
who  and  what  Herod  was,  a  son  of  Edom  and  a  ty- 
rant; but  how  genuine,  we  see  in  the  Herodian  party 
in  the  Gospels,  and  in  a  sober  argument  by  Epipha- 
nius,  three  centuries  later,  in  its  disproof. 

In  point  of  fact,  we  are  apt  to  think  too  much  of 
the  Messianic  hope  in  a  formal,  dogmatic  way,  or  in 
the  way,  perhaps,  of  learned  exposition.  We  asso- 
ciate it  too  exclusively  with  the  august  strains  of 
prophecy  on  one  side,  and  the  yet  more  august  series 
of  events  that  flowed  from  it  on  the  other.  We  do 
not  always  stop  to  think  how  simple,  how  natural,  how 
human  it  was,  after  all.  In  one  sense  it  is  a  miracle 
in  history,  a  phenomenon  without  any  exact  parallel,  — 
the  brooding  tenacity,  the  passionate  resolve,  the  re- 
vival from  defeat,  the  endurance  through  centuries  of 
humiliation,  that  characterize  the  Jews'  faith  in  their 
coming  Deliverer.  And  so,  again,  it  is  a  thing  that  is 
and  must  remain  without  example,  that  a  national 
hope  has  been  transfigured  in  the  person  of  One  who, 


FERVOR  OF  THE   NATIONAL   PASSION.  9 

after  near  nineteen  centuries,  is  still  looked  up  to  as 
the  spiritual  Chief  of  humanity,  and  whose  name  has 
been  received  as  the  symbol  of  what  is  Infinite  and 
Divine,  nay,  as  a  name  of  the  Infinite  himself. 

But  look  at  it,  again,  on  its  nearer  side,  and  it  is 
not  so  hard  to  see  —  not  only  that  it  was  altogether 
human  in  its  passion  and  limitation,  not  only  that  in 
its  wild  frenzy  it  led  straight  to  a  tragedy  of  unex- 
ampled horror ;  but  that  in  its  elements  it  belonged 
quite  naturally  to  such  a  time  and  people.  In  its  ve- 
hement persistency,  in  its  passionate  devoutness,  it  is 
fairly  matched  by  the  four  centuries'  struggle  in  which 
the  fighting  tribe  of  Montenegro,  under  their  bishop- 
prince,  have  consecrated  themselves  to  the  crusade 
against  the  Turk,  —  a  struggle  whose  issues  it  is  not 
long  since  we  were  watching  in  the  telegraphic  bul- 
letins of  the  day.  In  its  temper  of  stern  patriotism  — 
sombre,  tender,  unyielding,  pathetically  hopeless  — 
it  is  like  that  other  amazing  phenomenon  of  our  time, 
the  life  that  smoulders  in  the  ashes  of  thrice-desolated 
Poland. 

We  do  not  always  think  how  close  these  great  his- 
toric passions  may  come  to  our  own  life.  There  was 
lately  living  quietly  among  us  a  princess  of  the  blood 
of  old  Lithuanian  heroes  —  Antonia  Jagiello  —  who, 
with  more  than  the  heroism  of  a  Deborah  or  a  Judith, 
led  the  forlorn  hope  at  the  head  of  her  regiment  on 
the  battle-fields  of  Hungary.  Let  me  copy  here  a 
picture  which  I  find  in  a  powerful  French  romance : 
it  is  of  the  hapless  insurrection  of  1863,  and  it  is  a 
young  Pole  that  speaks,  who  visits  his  mother  in 
Paris,   feeling  himself  dead  to   honor  ever  since  he 


10  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

signed  in  prison  a  pledge  not  to  persist  in  war  against 
the  oppressor :  — 

"  Before  me  was  a  figure  in  alabaster  representing  a 
woman  crouched  and  in  chains,  with  the  inscription, 
Polonia  exspectans  et  sperans,  '  Poland  waits  and  hopes.' 
Above  hung  an  ivory  crucifix  ;  between  the  crucifix  and 
the  crouching  figure  my  portrait  in  medallion.  Here 
m}'  mother  had  gathered  all  her  love, — her  God,  her 
country,  and  her  child.  How  strange  the  position  of 
that  portrait  seemed  !  What  had  that  woman  in  chains, 
that  crucified  God,  to  say  to  him  ?  What  had  he  to  an- 
swer them?  But  no,  I  said,  this  portrait  is  not  I.  It 
is  that  other,  —  he  who  had  a  faith,  and  is  dead.  And  I 
thought  of  these  things  with  unfathomable  pity,  —  that 
hidden  manna,  that  bread  of  life,  held  in  a  mother's 
heart." 

This  is  all  over  again  the  picture  of  that  passion 
which  we  have  seen  in  the  figure  Judcea  Capta  seated 
beneath  a  palm ;  which  the  women  of  Judah  had  in 
their  hearts  when  they  wore  the  turreted  ornament 
on  their  head,  "  the  golden  city,"  as  a  witness  that 
they  should  never  forget  the  fallen  and  loved  Jerusa- 
lem. The  Polish  lady  learns  her  son's  forfeited  honor, 
disowns  him,  and  dies.  It  is  exactly  the  old  Hebrew- 
phrase,  "  cut  off  from  his  people."  The  terrible  story 
of  Joseplms  tells  of  a  temper  as  stern  and  high, 
among  the  women  of  Judah  who  fell  in  their  country's 
fall.  And  a  passion  as  deep,  though  not  vindictive 
and  fierce  like  that,  lay  doubtless  in  the  heart  of  Jesus, 
when  he  said,  "  0  Jerusalem,  Jerusalem  !  that  killest 
the  prophets,  and  stonest  them  which  are  sent  unto 
thee,  how  often  would  I  have  gathered  thy  children 


CHARACTER  OF  THE   MESSIANIC   HOPE.  11 

together,  as  a  hen  gathereth  her  chickens  under  her 
wings,  and  ye  would  not !  Behold,  your  house  is  left 
unto  you  desolate."  And  again,  "  Daughters  of  Jerusa- 
lem, weep  not  for  me,  but  weep  for  yourselves  and 
for  your  children." 

Intense,  narrow,  patriotic,  human  as  it  was,  tne 
Messianic  hope  was  very  little  ideal,  had  very  little 
of  what  we  should  call  religious.  So  far  as  it  looked 
at  all  beyond  the  fact  of  triumph  and  independence, 
it  seems  to  have  been  entirely  secular,  even  sordidly 
practical.  It  meant  meat  and  drink,  olives,  corn,  and 
vineyards,  sheep,  cows,  and  oxen,  and  a  vigorous  lord- 
ing it  over  other  people.  -Wherever  the  Jewish  im- 
agination trusts  itself  in  images  of  the  future,  it  takes 
very  strongly  to  such  realities  as  these.  So  much,  at 
least,  we  can  get  from  a  glimpse  or  two  at  that  master- 
piece of  fancy  running  riot,  the  Babylonish  Talmud, 
with  its  monstrous  banquets  of  behemoth  and  levia- 
than, and  its  vast  clusters  of  grapes,  each  clamorous 
to  be  gathered  before  its  fellow.  The  Messianic 
kingdom  was  to  be  established  in  "  righteousness,"  it 
is  true ;  but,  so  far  as  consciously  developed,  a  right- 
eousness like  that  of  the  Scribes  and  Pharisees, — 
quite  sincere  in  its  way,  but  wonderfully  dry  and 
thin,  resembling  what  we  think  of  under  that  name 
very  much  as  lichen  resembles  flowers  and  grain. 

But  we  need  not  dwell  on  this  side  of  it:  first, 
because  it  is  sufficiently  apparent  in  the  censures  of 
Jesus  himself;  and  secondly,  because  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple never  since  the  Captivity  fairly  exhibited  their 
qualities  in  an  independent  national  life.  Forced  in 
upon  itself  by  oppression  or  else  antagonism  on  every 


12  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

side,  the  petty  monarchy  enjoyed  at  best  such  inde- 
pendence as  it  could  win  from  the  mutual  jealousies 
of  Syria  and  Kome.  The  real  history  of  the  Messi- 
anic period  is  a  history  of  almost  constant  struggle, 
often  heroic,  and  at  critical  periods  in  the  highest  de- 
gree tragical. 

That  period,  properly  defined,  includes  about  three 
centuries.  It  begins  with  the  revolt  of  the  Macca- 
bees and  the  visions  of  Daniel ;  it  ends  with  the 
brief  messianic  reign  of  Bar-kochab  (or  Barcochbas)  * 
who  perished  in  the  final  conquest  of  Jerusalem  by 
Hadrian,  and  the  martyrdom  of  Babbi  Akibah  just  a 
hundred  years  after  the  crucifixion  of  Jesus.  With- 
in this  period  —  nay,  in  that  brief  space  of  restless 
spiritual  agitation  between  the  death  of  Herod  and 
the  fall  of  Jerusalem  in  A.  D.  70  —  I  have  seen  it  stated 
that  no  less  than  fifty  adventurers  were  more  or  less 
widely  recognized  as  Messiahs,  and  were  known  under 
that  claim  to  history.  Lawless  and  turbulent  insur- 
gents, most  of  them,  against  Roman  rule,  or  else  the 
fiercest  and  most  stubborn  of  military  leaders  when 
the  storm  of  conquest  and  destruction  fell.  The 
hard  matter-of-fact  rendering  given  in  such  events  as 
these,  of  a  hope  so  fervid  and  ideal  at  the  start,  —  a 
rendering  of  it  at  once  sordid  and  fierce, —  it  seems 
necessary  to  bring  into  strong  relief,  if  we  would  see 
it  as  a  natural  thing  in  human  annals,  and  at  the  same 
time  know  the  real  background  of  that  purely  ethical 
and  spiritual  interpretation,  which  at  length  displaced 
it,  and  transfigured  the  Messiah  to  the  Christ. 

*  This  title  signifies  "  Son  of  the  Star,"  in  allusion  to  Balaam's 
prophecy  (Numbers  xxiv.  17). 


MESSIANIC   CONSCIOUSNESS   OF  JESUS.  13 

It  does  not  belong  properly  to  our  task  to  attempt 
a  solution  of  that  central  problem  of  history,  the  ori- 
gin of  Christianity.  Science  is  not  content  until  it 
has  traced  one  by  one  the  links  of  sequence  that  guide 
from  antecedent  to  result,  and  is  sure  that  there  is  no 
missing  link.  But  science  does  not  define  or  assign 
the  Cause,  which  it  must  always  assume,  or  else 
ignore,  —  historical  science  as  much  as  any.  This  par- 
ticular antecedent  of  Christianity,  which  we  find  in 
the  Messianic  hope  of  the  Jews,  it  is  well  for  us  to 
see  as  distinctly  as  we  can,  —  how  it  was,  in  the  way 
of  historical  perspective ;  what  it  was,  in  the  way  of 
historical  imagination.  When  we  would  apply  it  to 
explain  anything  in  the  rise  of  Christianity,  we  find 
it,  so  to  speak,  not  at  the  heart,  but  rather  at  the  two 
edges  of  the  phenomenon  we  are  seeking  to  explain. 
We  find  it  at  every  step  in  the  gospel  narrative,  where 
it  makes  an  element  in  the  mental  atmosphere,  with- 
out which  the  course  of  that  narrative  would  be  man- 
ifestly inconsequent  and  incredible ;  and,  when  the 
scene  shifts  to  apostolic  times,  we  find  it  just  fading 
away  in  all  its  grosser  features,  while  it  is  getting 
transfigured  into  a  sacred  memory  and  an  ideal 
truth. 

The  first  thing  we  have  to  do,  then,  is  to  take  the 
record  of  the  facts,  if  we  can,  absolutely  without  the 
warp  of  any  preconceived  opinion,  or  any  theological 
dogmatism.  Looking  at  them  so,  it  appears  plain  that 
what  we  may  call  the  messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus, 
which  is  so  intense  and  even  predominant  towards  the 
close  of  his  ministry,  was  a  comparatively  late  devel- 
opment in  him.     To  put  it  in  theological  phrase,  his 


14  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

generation  as  Son  of  God  was  anterior  to  his  appoint- 
ment as  Messiah  of  the  Jews.  In  the  language  we 
usually  apply  to  human  experience,  his  vocation  as  a 
moral  and  spiritual  teacher  was  recognized  first ;  and 
only  as  an  after  result  came  his  strong  conviction  that 
he  was  the  chosen  Deliverer  of  his  people,  though  by 
a  way  they  could  not  understand  or  follow. 

At  first  they  knew  him  only  as  a  village  enthusiast, 
a  Galilsean  teacher,  at  best  a  Eabbi,  like  other  inter- 
preters of  the  Law,  one  of  the  school  perhaps  of  Eabbi 
Hillel  or  Eabbi  Simeon,  like  them  setting  the  weight- 
ier  matters  of  justice  and  mercy  above  the  mint,  anise, 
and  cumin  of  current  exposition.  For  a  background 
to  the  understanding  of  his  discourses,  one  should 
know  something  of  the  wonderful  well-meaning  ped- 
antry of  the  rabbinical  interpreters,  and  something 
too  of  the  genuine  and  wholesome  ethics  which  the 
better  sort,  Hillel  at  their  head,  had  tried  to  engraft 
upon  it. 

But  here  was  a  new  and  astonishing  phenomenon. 
Their  placid  moralism,  their  commonplaces  of  natural 
ethics,  suddenly  blazed  out  in  a  passionate  and  even 
haughty  conviction,  —  flooded  too  with  a  glow  of 
fervent  trust,  a  wealth  of  human  tenderness,  a  strain 
of  poetic  beauty,  which  made  it  all,  as  it  were,  a  new 
revelation  to  his  hearers,  and  "he  taught  them  as 
one  having  authority."  All  this  is  indicated,  plainly 
enough,  in  the  austere  morality,  the  sharp  transitions, 
the  strange  and  winning  sweetness,  the  tender  and 
bright  imagery,  the  perfect  expression  of  religious 
trust,  that  make  the  Sermon  on  the  Mount  different 
in  kind  from  all  other  existing  words,  —  from  the  calm 


SYMPATHY  WITH  THE  POPULAR  FEELING.  15 

beatitudes  of  its  opening  to  the  stern  and  menacing 
parable  at  its  close.  This  we  must  take  as  the  type  of 
the  teaching  of  Jesus  in  its  earlier  stage,  apart  from 
all  critical  questions  that  touch  its  literary  form  or  the 
sources  of  its  doctrine.  The  swift  flow  and  the  vivid 
personality  we  find  in  it  are  the  very  stamp,  the  very 
person,  so  to  speak,  of  the  young  prophet  of  Galilee. 

But  this  is  not  the  person  of  the  Jewish  Messiah, 
even  by  the  highest  Christian  interpretation  we  can 
give  that  title.  The  consciousness  of  this  special 
mission  was  developed  in  the  mind  of  Jesus  later  than 
this,  and  gradually.  If  it  had  crossed  his  thought  be- 
fore, the  scene  of  the  Temptation  seems  to  show  that  it 
had  been  definitely  put  aside.  But  it  lay,  so  to  speak, 
very  near,  and  offered  itself  once  and  again.  With- 
out any  doubt  he  had  been  nurtured  in  that  fervent 
patriotic  hope  whose  peculiar  home  was  Galilee,  and 
felt  it  as  strongly  as  any  of  his  countrymen.  And, 
again,  the  words  of  John  the  Baptist  had  greatly 
quickened  that  restless  and  eager  expectation  in  the 
general  mind,  which  began  already  passionately  to 
demand  the  coming  of  a  Deliverer.  Eemember,  too, 
how  near,  in  the  mental  perspective,  was  that  day  of 
sudden  glory  which  had  redeemed  a  martyr  people 
from  a  yoke  more  cruel  and  seemingly  as  strong  as 
that  of  Ptome ;  and  how  the  name  of  Elias  the  fore- 
runner, mysteriously  hinted  by  Malachi,  and  repeated 
in  more  vehement  strain  in  the  prophecy  of  Enoch, 
was  already  current  in  men's  mouths. 

Now  it  was  not  the  words  of  purely  religious  teach- 
ing in  the  discourse  of  Jesus,  it  was  not  the  moral 
loftiness,  or   the   strong   appeal  to  conscience,  that 


16  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

made  the  people's  heart  acknowledge  its  King  in  him, 
and  so  (as  it  were)  flashed  back  the  conviction  upon 
his  own.  It  was  rather  those  other  signs  of  personal 
power  that  went  with  his  word.  It  was  that  his 
presence,  by  some  unexplained  force,  could  stir  great 
multitudes,  as  the  waves  of  the  sea  are  moved  by  the 
wind  or  lifted  by  the  moon ;  that  his  voice  could 
soothe  brooding  insanity,  and  control  the  wild  de- 
moniac, and  charm  away  the.  passion  of  despair  or 
grief;  that  healing  went  from  his  touch,  and  sick 
men  in  his  sight  became  conscious  of  new  health  and 
strength,  —  it  was  these  things  that  so  wrought  on 
them  that  they  "were  ready  to  take  him  by  force 
and  make  him  a  king." 

Now  when  a  man  becomes  aware  in  himself  of 
some  rare,  perhaps  unparalleled,  personal  power,  — 
power,  too,  of  a  sort  that  distinctly  imposes  on  him  a 
special  mission  to  his  fellow-men,  a  task  to  fulfil 
altogether  his  own,  and  a  destiny  apart  from  theirs, 
* — this  conviction  is  apt  to  come  upon  him  with  awe 
and  sadness  and  a  certain  terror.  "  All,  Lord  God  ! " 
said  Jeremiah,  "  behold,  I  cannot  speak,  for  I  am  a 
child."  But  the  Lord  said,  "  Say  not,  I  am  a  child  ; 
for  thou  shalt  go  to  all  that  I  shall  send  thee,  and 
whatsoever  I  command  thee  thou  shalt  speak." 

This  spiritual  crisis,  we  may  conceive,  came  to 
Jesus  not  before  but  during  his  public  ministry.  It 
is  indicated  by  his  shrinking  from  the  observation 
and  contact  of  men  ;  by  his  spending  whole  nights 
apart  in  prayer ;  by  the  Transfiguration,  in  which  he 
is  forewarned  of  "  the  decease  which  he  must  accom- 
plish at  Jerusalem."     Before  it,  his  words  are  such  as 


THE  ENTRANCE  INTO  JERUSALEM.       17 

I  have  spoken  of,  —  the  deep  conviction  of  moral 
truth,  the  pure  poetry  of  the  religious  life.  After 
it,  we  have  his  vehement  appeals  to  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple, his  passionate  denunciations  of  their  timeserving 
and  false  leaders,  his  brooding  tenderness  over  the 
near  fate  of  Jerusalem,  his  whip  of  small  cords  for 
the  traders  of  the  temple,  his  apocalyptic  visions 
of  the  coming  terror,  his  vasme  but  awful  hints  con- 
veyed  in  parables  of  the  Virgins  and  of  the  impend- 
ing Judgment. 

These  all  belong  to  what  we  may  call  the  later  or 
Messianic  period  of  his  ministry.  I  do  not  mean 
that  in  its  essential  spiritual  elements,  in  its  assertion 
of  righteousness  and  mercy,  not  partiality  and  wrath, 
as  the  heart  of  the  Law,  this  second  period  was  at  all 
altered  from  the  spirit  of  the  first ;  but  only  that  its 
force  was  narrowed  more  and  more  in  a  single  chan- 
nel, towards  a  special  end.  How  distinctly  he  may 
have  thought  of  a  national  rescue  and  triumph  like 
that  of  Judas  the  Maccabee  as  a  possible  thing,  be- 
fore the  great  shadow  fell  upon  him  in  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane,  we  are  not,  perhaps,  entitled  to  judge. 
If  he  did  think  of  it  as  possible,  we  may  be  sure  it 
was  by  way  of  divine  miracle,  not  of  human  valor. 
There  was  one  hour  when  it  would  almost  seem  as  if 
he  accepted  this  conception  of  the  Messiah's  work, 
—  when  he  rode  into  Jerusalem  over  palm-leaves  and 
garments  strewn  in  the  way.  There  was  one  moment 
when  a  word  from  him  might  have  raised  a  storm  of 
popular  passion,  and  possibly  have  secured  a  few7  days 
of  bloody  triumph,  like  that  which,  forty  years  after- 
wards, w7ent   before   the   final   tragedy,  —  when   the 


16  THE   MESSIAH   AND   THE   CHRIST. 

made  the  people's  heart  acknowledge  its  King  in  him, 
and  so  (as  it  were)  flashed  back  the  conviction  upon 
his  own.  It  was  rather  those  other  signs  of  personal 
power  that  went  with  his  word.  It  was  that  his 
presence,  by  some  unexplained  force,  could  stir  great 
multitudes,  as  the  waves  of  the  sea  are  moved  by  the 
wind  or  lifted  by  the  moon ;  that  his  voice  could 
soothe  brooding  insanity,  and  control  the  wild  de- 
moniac, and  charm  away  the  passion  of  despair  or 
grief;  that  healing  went  from  his  touch,  and  sick 
men  in  his  sight  became  conscious  of  new  health  and 
strength,  —  it  was  these  things  that  so  wrought  on 
them  that  they  "were  ready  to  take  him  by  force 
and  make  him  a  king." 

Now  when  a  man  becomes  aware  in  himself  of 
some  rare,  perhaps  unparalleled,  personal  power,  — 
power,  too,  of  a  sort  that  distinctly  imposes  on  him  a 
special  mission  to  his  fellow-men,  a  task  to  fulfil 
altogether  his  own,  and  a  destiny  apart  from  theirs, 
J — this  conviction  is  apt  to  come  upon  him  with  awe 
and  sadness  and  a  certain  terror.  "  Ah,  Lord  God  ! " 
said  Jeremiah,  "  behold,  I  cannot  speak,  for  I  am  a 
child."  But  the  Lord  said,  "  Say  not,  I  am  a  child  ; 
for  thou  shalt  go  to  all  that  I  shall  send  thee,  and 
whatsoever  I  command  thee  thou  shalt  speak." 

This  spiritual  crisis,  we  may  conceive,  came  to 
Jesus  not  before  but  during  his  public  ministry.  It 
is  indicated  by  his  shrinking  from  the  observation 
and  contact  of  men  ;  by  his  spending  whole  nights 
apart  in  prayer ;  by  the  Transfiguration,  in  which  he 
is  forewarned  of  "  the  decease  which  he  must  accom- 
plish at  Jerusalem."     Before  it,  his  words  are  such  as 


THE   ENTRANCE   INTO   JERUSALEM.  17 

I  have  spoken  of,  —  the  deep  conviction  of  moral 
truth,  the  pure  poetry  of  the  religious  life.  After 
it,  we  have  his  vehement  appeals  to  the  Jewish  peo- 
ple, his  passionate  denunciations  of  their  timeserving 
and  false  leaders,  his  brooding  tenderness  over  the 
near  fate  of  Jerusalem,  his  whip  of  small  cords  for 
the  traders  of  the  temple,  his  apocalyptic  visions 
of  the  coming  terror,  his  vague  but  awful  hints  con- 
veyed in  parables  of  the  Virgins  and  of  the  impend- 
ing Judgment. 

These  all  belong  to  what  we  may  call  the  later  or 
Messianic  period  of  his  ministry.  I  do  not  mean 
that  in  its  essential  spiritual  elements,  in  its  assertion 
of  righteousness  and  mercy,  not  partiality  and  wrath, 
as  the  heart  of  the  Law,  this  second  period  was  at  all 
altered  from  the  spirit  of  the  first ;  but  only  that  its 
force  was  narrowed  more  and  more  in  a  single  chan- 
nel, towards  a  special  end.  How  distinctly  he  may 
have  thought  of  a  national  rescue  and  triumph  like 
that  of  Judas  the  Maccabee  as  a  possible  thing,  be- 
fore the  great  shadow  fell  upon  him  in  the  Garden  of 
Gethsemane,  we  are  not,  perhaps,  entitled  to  judge. 
If  he  did  think  of  it  as  possible,  we  may  be  sure  it 
was  by  way  of  divine  miracle,  not  of  human  valor. 
There  was  one  hour  when  it  would  almost  seem  as  if 
he  accepted  this  conception  of  the  Messiah's  work, 
—  when  he  rode  into  Jerusalem  over  palm-leaves  and 
garments  strewn  in  the  way.  There  was  one  moment 
when  a  word  from  him  might  have  raised  a  storm  of 
popular  passion,  and  possibly  have  secured  a  few  days 
of  bloody  triumph,  like  that  which,  forty  years  after- 
wards, went   before   the   final   tragedy,  —  when   the 


20  THE  MESSIAH   AND  THE   CHRIST. 

But  in  the  lapse  of  years,  in  the  growth  of  other 
sympathies  and  duties,  and  the  keen  interests  of  daily 
life,  all  that  was  special  and  local  in  the  Messianic 
hope  must  inevitably  thin  out  and  disappear.  How 
it  became  transfigured  in  the  minds  of  those  who  had 
not  known  Jesus  after  the  flesh,  till  for  the  Messiah 
we  have  at  length  the  Christ  in  history,  belongs 
rather  to  a  study  of  the  life  and  work  of  the  Apos- 
tle Paul,  —  who  was  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews ;  who 
"  for  the  hope  of  Israel "  was  bound  in  chains ;  but 
who  was  also  the  great  free-thinker  of  the  Apostolic 
era,  and  has  been  the  real  interpreter,  some  would 
say  even  the  founder,  of  Christianity  for  the  modern 
world. 


II. 

SAINT  PAUL. 

THERE  is  nowhere  a  finer  challenge  to  the  histori- 
cal imagination  —  that  is,  to  our  power  of  seeing 
things  in  a  former  time  just  as  they  really  were  — 
than  that  offered  by  the  very  beginnings  of  Christian- 
ity as  an  organized  power,  as  a  social  force.  Let  us  try 
to  take  up  that  challenge  as  if  the  facts  were  all  new 
to  us,  and  we  had  to  study  them  for  the  first  time. 

First  of  all,  what  was  the  source  of  the  indomitable 
faith,  the  victorious  moral  force,  which  made  that 
little  company  of  disciples  the  corner-stone  of  a  new 
order  of  civilization  ?  How  was  it  that  the  incon- 
spicuous gathering  of  about  a  hundred  and  twenty  in 
the  upper  chamber  at  Jerusalem  had  in  it  the  seed  of 
a  great  growth,  which  spread  its  roots  amidst  the  de- 
cay of  the  old  order  of  things,  and  flourished  most 
abundantly  when  all  that  splendid  structure  of  art 
and  empire  was  a  mass  of  mouldering  ruin  ? 

A  full  answer  to  this  question  would  cover  the 
whole  ground  of  the  early  Christian  history.  With- 
out attempting  so  much  as  that,  it  is  enough  to  say 
that  every  great  political  or  social  revolution  will 
have  its  type  in  the  life,  the  character,  the  work,  of 
some  one  man  ;  and  that  the  great  moral  and  spiritual 
force  we  are  considering  is  typified,  more  than  any- 


22  SAINT   PAUL. 

where  else,  in  the  vehement  conviction,  the  ardent 
temper,  the  impassioned  eloquence,  the  organizing 
skill,  the  personal  experience,  and  the  vivid  religious 
imagination  of  the  Apostle  Paul. 

He  is  the  man  of  genius  and  the  man  of  power  of 
the  first  Christian  age.  Comte  calls  him,  frankly,  the 
real  founder  of  Christianity,  holding  the  legend  of 
Jesus  to  be  a  pale  and  ineffectual  myth.  But  in 
Jesus  himself,  as  already  seen,  there  were  —  besides 
the  indefinable  something  which  resides  in  person- 
ality —  at  least  two  elements,  one  of  vast  personal 
force,  and  the  other  of  great  historical  significance :  his 
intense  conception  of  purely  moral  truth  and  of  re- 
ligion as  a  life,  and  his  equally  intense  conviction  of 
his  calling  as  Messiah  of  the  Jews.  These  were  the 
necessary  antecedents  of  the  revolution,  looked  at 
from  its  purely  human  side.  But,  as  soon  as  the 
movement  widens  out  beyond  the  narrow  range  of  a 
merely  personal  and  local  influence,  then  the  life  and 
work  of  Paul  come  to  be  just  as  essential  to  any  real 
understanding  of  it.  To  show  how  that  indispensable 
service  was  enlisted,  and  how  the  new  movement  was 
inspired  and  guided  by  it,  is  what  we  mean  by  an 
intelligent  study  of  his  life. 

The  martyrdom  of  Stephen  and  the  journey  to  Da- 
mascus mark  the  critical  moment  of  Paul's  conver- 
sion. The  Council  at  Jerusalem,  which  is  put  some 
fifteen  years  later,  marks  the  critical  moment  when 
Christianity  burst  the  bounds  of  Judaism,  and  stood 
before  the  world  as  an  independent  faith,  —  in  short, 
when  the  mind  and  influence  of  Paul  had  become 
predominant. 


THE   CHRISTIAN    COMMUNITY.  23 

But  for  each  of  these  moments  there  is  a  previous 
question,  before  it  becomes  intelligible :  for  the  first, 
What  was  the  bond  of  union  among  the  first  disci- 
ples, that  held  them  together  so  tenaciously  and  so 
long  ?  and  for  the  second,  What  was  the  attraction  in 
them  that  drew  the  gentiles  that  way,  so  that  it  was 
a  privilege  to  join  their  body,  and  there  was  a  de- 
mand for  the  grave  concessions  (as  they  regarded 
them)  which  they  felt  bound  to  make  ? 

It  is  easy  to  answer  both  these  questions  hy  saying 
that  it  was  all  a  miracle,  and  then  to  take  the  only 
record  we  have  as  simply  a  statement  of  the  fact. 
For  my  part,  I  do  not  see  any  reason  to  doubt  that 
the  early  Church  had  extraordinary  powers  —  such  as 
gifts  of  healing,  insight,  and  fervent  speech  —  which 
they  would  necessarily  think  miraculous.  "Every 
good  gift,"  says  James,  "comes  from  the  Father  of 
lights."  Similar  gifts  have  been  asserted,  with  sin- 
cerity  and  often  no  doubt  with  truth,  by  various 
bodies  of  religionists  in  every  age. 

But  take  the  account  as  literally  as  we  will,  that  is 
only  to  cut  the  knot  which  we  are  trying  to  untie  : 
the  facts,  so  seen,  are  ascertained,  not  understood.  We 
want,  if  we  can,  to  see  them  just  as  they  lay  in  the 
minds  of  the  witnesses,  and  as  we  should  see  them  if 
we  could  cross-question  those  witnesses.  This  we 
cannot  do.  We  can  only  look  at  the  thing  in  a  broad 
way.  We  hold  the  facts,  as  it  were,  in  solution  in  our 
mind,  and  wait  for  them  to  crystallize  in  such  shape 
as  shall  most  naturally  represent  them  to  our  mind. 

We  listen,  then,  to  the  reports  that  spread  abroad 
that  the  crucified  Jesus  had  actually  reappeared  in. 


24  SAINT   PAUL. 

the  flesh ;  we  see  the  eager  readiness  with  which  those 
reports  were  received  and  cherished ;  and  then  the 
lingering  expectation  that  he  might  resume  his  public 
career  and  assert  a  triumphant  messiahship  appears 
to  give  way,  almost  insensibly,  to  a  belief  among  his 
followers  that  he  had  been  taken  up  visibly  into  the 
clouds,  and  would  presently  reappear,  just  as  visibly, 
to  establish  his  victorious  reign. 

I  take  it  for  granted  that  this  belief  of  theirs  was 
very  precise  and  simple,  and  that  there  was  nothing 
in  their  habit  of  mind  which  made  it  at  all  difficult 
for  them  to  receive  it  so.  As  to  the  narratives  of  the 
Resurrection  and  Ascension,  I  do  not  undertake  to  ex- 
plain them  all  away,  or  in  fact  to  explain  them  at  all. 
From  the  arguments  of  the  early  apologists,  it  is  clear 
that  they  were  received  as  precise  and  literal  fact  by 
the  general  body  of  believers.  But  no  amount  of  tes- 
timony would  be  enough,  to  the  mind  of  the  present 
day,  to  convince  men  as  a  new  fact  that  a  body  once 
really  dead  had  been  restored  to  life  ;  still  less,  that  it 
had  been  actually  seen  to  pass  into  the  sky  "  with 
flesh,  bones,  and  all  things  appertaining  to  the  per- 
fection of  man's  nature,"  as  the  later  creed  declares. 
Such,  at  least,  was  not  the  view  of  Paul ;  who,  in- 
deed, asserts  very  earnestly  the  reality  of  the  resur- 
rection and  the  glorified  life  of  Jesus  in  the  eternal 
state,  but  with  equal  explicitness  declares  that  not 
flesh  and  blood,  but  a  "  spiritual  body, "  is  that  which 
can  really  inherit  the  kingdom  of  heaven. 

The  first  element  of  power  in  the  early  Church 
was,  then,  a  distinct  and  literal  belief  of  certain  facts, 
coupled  with  a  very  positive  and  confident  assurance 


GROWTH   OF   THE   COMMUNITY.  25 

that  a  definite  prophecy  was  going  to  be  fulfilled. 
That  such  an  assurance  is  a  real  power  and  a  bond  of 
union,  however  shadowy  its  ground  may  appear  to  us, 
we  see  in  those  sects  of  Adventists  who  have  appeared 
at  intervals  ever  since,  and  who,  after  eighteen  cen- 
turies of  disappointment,  are  probably  as  numerous  in 
our  clay  as  ever.  But  we  must  conceive,  if  we  can, 
how  intense  and  vivid,  beyond  all  modern  comparison, 
this  expectation  of  Christ's  second  coming  must  have 
been  in  that  aoe,  and  so  assume  it  here  as  the  first 
unquestionable  and  all-powerful  bond  of  union ;  re- 
membering, too,  that  at  this  point  we  are  dealing  only 
with  Jews,  at  the  very  heart  of  the  long  period  of 
intense  and  heated  expectation  which  we  have  called 
the  Messianic  Era. 

But  this  is  only  one  point.  Why  was  it  that  a  little 
inner  circle  of  Jews,  —  whose  leaders  were  "  unlearned 
and  ignorant  men,"  more  intensely  Jewish,  and  (so  to 
speak)  more  bigoted  and  narrow  than  the  average  of 
their  countrymen,*  —  why  was  it  that  they  could  exert 
such  an  immense  power  of  attraction  and  persuasion 
that  in  one  day  three  thousand  were  added  to  their 
number,  and  in  a  few  months  they  reckoned  a  com- 
munity of  five  thousand  souls,  and  in  a  few  years 
multitudes  were  knocking  hard  for  admission  at  their 
doors,  and  in  a  few  generations  the  whole  Roman 
empire  was  at  their  feet  ?  Never  in  all  history  has 
there  been  the  parallel  case  of  a  growth  so  genuine, 
so  vast,  or  so  powerful,  out  of  what  was  at  the  start 
a  purely  moral  movement,  or  a  purely  religious  im- 
pulse. 

*  See  Acts  ii.  46,  iv.  13. 

2 


26  SAINT   PAUL. 

A  full  answer  to  the  question  includes  a  great  va- 
riety of  things :  earnest  faith,  strong  mutual  attach- 
ment, a  common  loyalty,  skilful  organization,  good 
lives,  gifts  of  healing  and  the  like  (which  they  called 
"  powers,"  and  which  we  call  "  miracles  "),  the  con- 
tagious enthusiasm  that  often  comes  from  isolation 
and  from  martyrdom.  But  the  power  of  the  organ- 
ized movement  at  the  start  seems  best  explained  by 
what  we  are  told  of  the  socialistic  sentiment  and 
theory  of  the  early  Church.  "  No  man  among  them 
believed  that  aught  which  he  possessed  was  his  own, 
but  they  had  all  things  common."  That  is,  they  did 
really  try  to  put  in  practice,  in  the  most  literal  way, 
those  precepts  of  boundless  and  uncalculating  gen- 
erosity which  are  contained  in  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount. 

And  this,  if  we  will  look  at  it,  was  of  itself  a 
prodigious  force.  Its  power  is  commonly  seen  not  in 
the  well  educated  or  in  the  well-to-do,  who  in  general 
know  nothing  of  the  socialistic  sentiment  and  rather 
hold  it  in  contempt.  But  look  at  the  prodigious 
fanaticism  it  evoked  in  the  first  French  Revolution ; 
look  at  its  terrific  and  obstinate  strength  in  the  Paris 
Commune  of  1871 ;  look  at  the  martyrdoms  willingly 
undergone  for  it  in  Russia  at  this  day,  where  it  has 
been  enthusiastically  embraced  by  high-born  men  and 
ladies  delicately  bred,  who  submit  to  persecution,  con- 
fiscation, exile  more  bitter  than  death ;  *  look  at  the 

*  "  Students  leave  the  lecture-rooms  to  mix  with  the  peasants  ; 
princes  leave  their  palaces  to  seek  work  in  the  factories ;  noble 
girls  flee  from  their  families  to  go  into  service  as  cooks  and- seam- 
stresses;  and,  if  they  are  disturbed  in  the  midst  of  their  propa- 
ganda by  the  police,  they   wander  with  unbroken  courage   to 


THE   MARTYRDOM    OF   STEPHEN.  27 

grand,  almost  sublime,  even  if  mistaken  munificence 
with  which  the  workingmen  of  England  and  America 
in  these  last  years  have  borne  one  another's  burdens, 
so  as  to  win  some  far-off  victory  in  the  battle  of  capi- 
tal and  labor ;  —  and  then  you  see  that  the  socialistic 
sentiment  is  one  of  the  great  moral  forces  to  move 
human  society  to  its  foundations.  Not  sordid  interest, 
but  uncalculating  sentiment,  is  what  carries  the  day 
in  the  great  crises  of  humanity. 

The  early  disciples  were  hard-working,  plain-speak- 
ing people ;  "  not  many  great,  not  many  rich,  not 
many  mighty,  not  many  noble  were  called."  A  part 
of  their  working  faith  was  a  most  generous,  a  most 
unsparing  doctrine  of  the  sharing  of  goods  and  bur- 
dens. Read  the  story  of  Ananias  and  Sapphira. 
Read  what  Paul  says  of  missionary  and  charitable 
gifts.  Read  the  Epistle  of  James,  which  in  its  de- 
nouncing of  the  vanity,  wealth,  and  fashion  that  began 
to  creep  in,  speaks  the  very  heart  of  the  first  church 
at  Jerusalem,  as  it  echoes  the  very  thought  of  those 
who  assail  most  formidably  a  proud,  rich,  and  dom- 
inant ecclesiasticism  at  this  day. 

A  crisis  came  to  the  affairs  of  the  church  at  Jerusa- 
lem, after  six  or  eight  years  of  unmolested  growth,  with 
the  death  of  Stephen.  He  was  a  sort  of  half-Greek, 
a  man  of  greater  vigor,  boldness,  and  mental  breadth 
than  the  rest,  and  is  held  to  have  been,  in  a  sense,  the 
forerunner  of  Paul.  His  martyrdom  shows  the  first 
sharp  collision  caused  by  the  Greek  or  foreign  element 

Siberia,  march  defiantly  to  the  gallows,  always  setting  the  dan- 
gerous, contagious  example  of  triumphant  martyrdom.  Of  what 
use,  then,  are  blows,  chains,  the  scaffold  1  " 


28  SAINT   PAUL. 

asserting  itself  in  the  Church.  Now  Paul  —  at  this 
time  known  by  the  Jewish  name  of  Saul — "was 
consenting  to  his  death."  He  was  a  man  of  thirty,  in 
the  hot  glow  of  a  first  conviction,  trained  austerely 
as  a  Jew  of  the  straitest  sort,  and  doubtless  thought 
he  ought  to  do  something  by  way  of  testimony 
against  these  disturbers  of  the  comfortable  religious 
peace. 

But  his  heart  was  very  much  larger  than  his  creed. 
How  much  he  had  been  impressed  in  a  quieter  way 
before,  by  the  spectacle  of  that  close-clinging  and  de- 
voted life  of  the  Christian  community,  nothing  is 
told.  But  the  shock  of  that  first  martyrdom  —  the 
noble  head  of  Stephen,  with  a  face  "  as  it  had  been 
an  angel's,"  battered  out  of  human  likeness  by  jagged 
stones  flung  from  fierce  and  cruel  hands  of  a  mob  of 
bigots  right  there  on  the  pavement  before  his  eyes  — 
struck  him  like  a  blow.  That  was  putting  the  whole 
thing  in  quite  another  shape.  Out  of  sheer  wilful 
consistency,  as  we  may  imagine,  he  proceeded  to  carry 
out  his  commission,  "  breathing  out  threatening  and 
slaughter,"  and  to  put  it  in  execution  as  far  as  Da- 
mascus, some  hundred  and  fifty  miles  away.  And 
then  —  we  know  the  story :  the  blinding  flash  from 
the  sky ;  the  voice  as  of  the  very  Crucified  One  in 
his  heart,  in  sorrow,  rebuke,  appeal ;  the  three  days' 
groping  in  darkness ;  and  then  the  sudden,  eager, 
glad  embracing  of  a  new  life. 

It  is  quite  beside  my  purpose  to  give  even  a  brief 
sketch  of  Paul's  life,  or  anything  like  an  analysis  of 
his  system  of  belief.  A  single  glance  we  may  be  per- 
mitted at  his  person,  as  described  by  the  earliest  wit- 


HIS   PERSONAL   CHARACTERISTICS.  29 

nesses :  a  man's  physical  frame  and  countenance  are 
often  the  best  type  of  the  personal  force  he  carries. 

Paul,  then,  according  to  the  legends,  was  a  man  lit- 
tle of  stature  —  under  five  feet  high  they  say,  high- 
shouldered,  beetle-browed,  stooping,  with  head  bent 
forward,  his  beard  and  hair  at  middle  life  of  an  iron- 
gray  ;  his  brow  wide,  his  face  thin,  his  eye  deep  and 
somewhat  sad ;  the  dark  eye,  the  marked  features, 
we  may  imagine  of  the  strong  Jewish  type.  His 
bodily  presence  was  weak  and  his  speech  contempti- 
ble, —  so  his  enemies  said.  That  his  speech  was  hesi- 
tating and  slow,  when  not  roused,  we  may  believe 
easily  enough :  it  wTas  so  with  Demosthenes  ;  it  was 
so  with  Mahomet,  who,  next  to  Paul,  has  shown  the 
most  burning  and  effective  eloquence  of  the  Semitic 
race,  and  in  whom,  like  Paul,  that  barrier  of  hesitating 
and  imperfect  utterance  gave  way  on  occasion  to  a 
hot  flood  of  passionate  and  eager  words,  that  stirred 
great  tides  of  popular  conviction.  How  vivid  and 
dramatic  that  eloquence  of  Paul's  could  be,  we  see  in 
the  noble  speech  before  Festus ;  how  dignified,  seri- 
ous, and  apt,  in  the  address  on  Mars'  Hill.  But  these 
were  flashes  of  power,  with  misgivings  and  rebuffs 
between.  "  I  was  with  you,"  he  says,  "  in  weakness, 
and  fear,  and  much  trembling."  "  Lest  I  should  be 
exalted  above  measure,  there  was  given  me  a  thorn  in 
the  flesh,  the  messenger  of  Satan  to  buffet  me."  This 
thorn  may  have  been  (as  Dr.  Brown  of  Edinburgh 
thinks)  a  dimness  of  sight  —  probably  with  much 
pain  —  ever  after  the  shock  that  blinded  him  on  the 
road  to  Damascus ;  but  perhaps  we  shall  understand 
it  better  if  we  connect  it  with  that  moral  conflict  of 


30  SAINT    PAUL. 

flesh  and  spirit,  which  I  shall  speak  of  later,  as  more 
than  all  else  the  source  of  Paul's  peculiar  power. 

We  get  a  much  more  vivid  notion  of  his  interior 
person  (so  to  speak)  from  Paul's  own  words,  than  we 
do  of  his  bodily  presence  through  doubtful  tradition. 
I  will  recall  a  few  phrases  which  reflect  the  native 
pride,  the  utter  lack  of  vanity,  the  sensitiveness  to 
affront,  the  eager  craving  for  sympathy,  that  go  along 
with  such  a  temperament :  —  "It  is  a  very  small  thing 
that  I  should  be  judged  of  you,  or  any  man's  judg- 
ment ;  he  that  judgeth  me  is  the  Lord."  "  We  have 
labored  night  and  day  that  we  might  not  be  charge- 
able to  any  of  you  while  we  preached ;  as  you  know, 
these  hands  have  provided  for  my  necessities."  "  We 
both  hunger  and  thirst,  and  are  naked,  and  are  buf- 
feted, and  have  no  certain  dwelling-place ;  we  work 
with  our  own  hands;  we  are  made  as  the  filth  of 
the  earth,  the  offscouring  of  all  things."  And  again  : 
"  We  are  troubled  on  every  side,  yet  not  distressed ; 
perplexed,  but  not  in  despair;  persecuted,  yet  not 
forsaken;  cast  down,  but  not  destroyed; — servants 
of  God  in  much  endurance,  in  afflictions,  in  necessi- 
ties, in  distresses,  in  stripes,  imprisonments,  tumults, 
labors,  watchings,  fastings,  —  in  honor  and  dishonor, 
in  good  report  and  evil  report ;  deceivers,  and  yet 
true ;  unknown,  and  yet  well  known ;  dying,  and  be- 
hold we  live;  sorrowful,  yet  always  rejoicing;  poor, 
yet  making  many  rich ;  having  nothing,  and  yet  pos- 
sessing all  things."  The  vehemence  and  the  love  of 
paradox,  which  run  so  well  with  many  veins  of  reli- 
gious experience,  show  strongly  here. 

And  again,  of  the  way  of  life :  that  had  fightings 


HARDSHIPS  OF   HIS   LIFE.  31 

without,  and  fears  within.  "  Of  the  Jews,"  he  says, 
"  five  times  received  I  forty  stripes  save  one.  Thrice 
I  was  beaten  with  rods.  Once  I  was  stoned.  Thrice 
I  suffered  shipwreck :  a  night  and  a  day  I  have  been  in 
the  deep ;  in  journey ings  often,  in  perils  of  waters, 
in  perils  of  robbers,  in  perils  by  my  own  countrymen, 
in  perils  by  the  heathen,  in  perils  in  the  city,  in 
perils  in  the  wilderness,  in  perils  in  the  sea,  in  perils 
among  false  brethren ;  in  weariness  and  paiufulness, 
in  watchings  often,  in  hunger  and  thirst,  in  fastings 
often,  in  cold  and  nakedness ;  and,  besides  all  these 
things,  which  are  without,  what  comes  upon  me  daily, 
anxiety  about  all  the  churches."  This,  it  will  be  re- 
membered, is  no  idle  complaint  or  appeal  to  pity,  but 
an  indignant  retort  to  those  enemies  of  his  at  Corinth 
who  appear  to  have  called  him  weak,  irritable,  and 
"  a  fool."  "  What  do  you  mean,  to  weep  and  break 
my  heart  ? "  he  says  at  Csesarea ;  "  I  am  ready,  not 
only  to  be  bound,  but  to  die  at  Jerusalem."  "  It  is 
for  the  hope  of  Israel,"  he  says  at  Borne,  "  that  I  am 
bound  with  this  chain."  And  to  the  Eoman  gov- 
ernor, "  Would  God  that  not  only  thou,  but  all  that 
hear  me  to-day,  were  both  almost  and  altogether  such 
as  I  am,  except  these  bonds." 

In  such  words  as  these  we  already  find  hints  of  the 
jealousies  and  disputes  which  followed  him  five  and 
twenty  years,  all  the  way  from  conversion  to  martyr- 
dom. It  was  with  much  natural  misgiving  that  the 
disciples  admitted  him  of  their  company  at  all  and 
very  reluctantly  that  they  let  him  speak  frankly  to 
the  Gentiles  in  their  name.  Even  then  (as  we  have 
seen)  taunting  opponents  would  sneer  at  his  stature, 


32  SAINT   PAUL. 

or  gait,  or  the  imperfections  of  his  speech.  Men  of 
narrower  culture  and  less  ardent  temper  would  set 
themselves  against  his  innovations,  and  he  must 
"  withstand  them  to  the  face,"  as  he  did  Peter  and 
James  at  Antioch ;  failing  so  of  his  own  fond  dream 
of  a  communion  in  which  diversities  of  gifts  should 
be  reconciled  in  the  bond  of  peace,  and  sharing,  in- 
stead, the  numberless  frets  and  irritations  that  beset 
a  divided  party,  outwardly  bound  together,  inwardly 
sundered  and  harassed. 

The  work  he  has  painfully  clone  at  Corinth  is  half 
undone  by  jealous  brethren,  who  throw  out  slurs 
against  his  authority  or  his  soundness  in  the  faith. 
Some  officious  intruder  has  "bewitched  his  foolish 
Galatians "  with  scruples  he  thought  silenced  long 
ago,  and  put  him  to  the  double  task  of  defending  his 
own  character,  and.  arguing  all  over  again  the  first 
principles  of  his  gospel.  And  it  is  a  symptom  at 
once  painful  and  strange  of  those  early  controversies, 
that  more  than  a  generation  after  his  death  his 
memory  was  attacked,  under  a  false  name,  by  the 
partisans  of  Peter;  and  phrases  of  his  writings  are 
travestied  in  Antinomian  discourses  ascribed  to  the 
arch-heretic  Simon  Mao-us. 

Doubtless  there  would  be  something  to  say  on  the 
other  side,  if  we  had  the  words  of  any  who  were  near 
enough  to  say  it.  We  too,  if  we  were  near  enough, 
should  most  likely  have  found  faults  in  what  we 
dimly  see  now  as  excellences ;  should  have  shared 
the  jealous  alarm  of  the  earlier  disciples  at  his  daring 
innovations  on  their  faith ;  should  have  resented  his 
off-hand  claim  of  official  equality  and  mental  supe- 


HIS    LAST   JOURNEY.  33 

riority;  should  have  joined  the  rest  in  calling  him 
testy,  irascible,  and  overbearing.  But  these  small 
personal  traits  fade  in  the  perspective  of  time ;  and 
we  remember  only  the  strong,  brave,  ardent,  tender- 
hearted man,  whose  very  faults  of  temperament  were 
a  sort  of  goad  in  the  work  he  had  to  do.  We  remem- 
ber only  that  that  eager  and  many-sided  mind  has 
done  for  us  the  necessary  task  of  transforming  the 
Galilsean  idyll,  the  tragedy  at  Jerusalem,  the  narrow 
Messianic  hope,  from  a  local  tradition  to  an  imperish- 
able possession  of  mankind. 

This  is  the  verdict  of  history  upon  him,  and  it  is 
just.  But  it  is  also  made  easier  to  us  by  the  fact  that 
it  is  through  his  own  words  Ave  know  him  best.  The 
most  transparent  of  men  unconsciously  idealizes  his 
thought  and  aim.  In  the  very  effort  to  interpret 
himself  to  others,  not  only  what  is  most  real,  but 
what  is  best  in  him,  comes  clearest  into  view.  So 
that  it  is  to  Paul's  advantage,  as  well  as  ours,  that  he 
is  his  own  interpreter. 

A  few  words  may  tell  us  the  noble  and  fit  close  of 
the  story.  Some  Jewish  fanatics  had  conspired,  and 
sworn  his  death.  Forty  of  them  vowed  that  "  they 
would  neither  eat  nor  drink  till  they  had  killed  Paul." 
Rescued  by  the  captain  of  the  guard,  he  appealed  to 
Rome.  Naturally,  he  "  had  a  great  desire  these  many 
years"  to  visit  the  Eternal  City,  then  the  sovereign 
centre  of  mind  as  well  as  empire.  A  stormy  passage, 
broken  by  shipwreck  on  the  coast  of  Malta,  brought 
him  among  a  few  friends  there  whom  he  had  once 
met  at  Corinth  :  here  was  the  little  nucleus  of  the 
Roman  Church.  After  two  years  there,  busy  and 
2*  c 


34  SAINT   PAUL. 

unmolested,  —  a  prisoner,  as  it  were,  on  parole,  —  he 
travelled,  as  the  traditions  say,  westward  into  Spain, 
and  even  to  the  "  farthest  isle,"  by  which  some  under- 
stand England,  or  even  Ireland.  "When,  some  time 
later,  Nero  (as  the  people  charged)  set  tire  to  Eome 
in  his  brutal  and  insolent  caprice,  he  turned  the 
charge  upon  the  Christians,  says  Tacitus  ;  threw  them 
to  wild  beasts  in  the  arena,  or  wrapped  them  in  tarred 
cloth  and  set  them  afire  at  night  to  light  the  imperial 
gardens.  Paul  was  brought  more  than  once  before 
the  judgment.  "  At  my  first  answer,"  he  said,  "  no 
man  stood  with  me,  but  all  deserted  me ;  but  the 
Lord  stood  by  me  and  strengthened  me,  and  I  was  de- 
livered from  the  lion's  mouth."  As  a  Roman  citizen 
he  might  not  be  cast  to  the  beasts,  or  die  a  slave's 
death  on  the  cross,  but  was  beheaded  with  the  sword. 
"  I  have  fought  a  good  fight,"  he  said,  while  waiting 
his  doom.  "  I  have  finished  my  course,  I  have  kept 
the  faith.  Henceforth  there  is  laid  up  for  me  a 
crown  of  righteousness,  which  the  Lord,  the  righteous 
judge,  shall  give  me  at  that  day."* 

Recognizing  that  the  forces  which  guide  human 
events  are  essentially  moral  forces,  and  have  their 
source  in  men's  conviction,  passion,  and  will,  and 
that  events  themselves  are  (in  a  sense)  but  the  reflex, 
at  least  the  outgrowth,  of  personal  character,  I  have 
gathered  thus  a  few  scattered  phrases  in  which  Paul 
lets  in  light  on  his  temper,  motive,  and  acts.     Per- 

*  2  Tim.  iv.  7,  8,  16,  18.  I  say  nothing  about  the  genuineness 
of  the  epistle,  which  is  well  known  to  be  doubtful.  But  it  is  cer- 
tainly easier  to  concede  it  to  be  Paul's,  than  to  imagine  it  written 
by  anybody  else. 


HIS   OPINIONS   AND   WHITINGS.  35 

haps,  with  all  these,  we  should  not  appreciate  the 
strong  hold  he  had  on  his  friends  by  way  of  sympa- 
thy, but  for  those  touching  words  in  the  parting  at 
Miletus  :  "  And  when  he  had  thus  spoken,  lie  knelt 
down  and  prayed  with  them  all ;  and  they  all  wept 
sore,  and  fell  on  Paul's  neck,  and  kissed  him,  sorrow- 
ing most  of  all  for  the  words  he  spoke,  that  they 
should  see  his  face  no  more."  * 

We  see,  then,  that  the  immense  influence  which 
went  forth  from  Paul's  life  —  perhaps  the  most  re- 
markable, considered  in  all  its  effects,  that  ever  flowed 
from  the  action  of  a  single  mind  —  had  its  main 
source  in  the  character  of  the  man.  His  opinions 
are  of  secondary  consequence ;  in  fact,  they  belong- 
as  much  to  the  time  as  to  him,  so  far  as  they  are 
merely  speculative.  But,  so  far  as  they  grow  out  of 
his  character,  and  express,  not  simply  belief,  but  pas- 
sionate conviction  in  him,  they  become  most  impor- 
tant elements  of  power.  They  are  the  very  avenues 
and  conductors  by  which,  as  from  an  electric  pile, 
that  vivid  force  made  itself  effectually  felt. 

A  word,  first,  of  the  documents  in  which  these 
opinions  are  found.  It  will  be  convenient  to  divide 
Paul's  epistles,  roughly,  into  three  groups ;  assuming 
the  Thessalonians  (I.  and  II.)  as  the  earliest ;  then  the 
four  great  epistles,  Romans,  Corinthians  (I.,  II.),  and 
Galatians ;  lastly,  the  Ephesians,  Philippians,  and  Co- 
lossians.  That  to  the  Hebrews  is  almost  certainly 
not  his;  and  the  three  short  "pastoral"  letters  to 
Timothy  and  Titus  are  of  doubtful  genuineness,  and 
of  less  doctrinal  account. 

*  Acts  xx.  36-38. 


36  SAIXT   PAUL. 

Strictly  speaking,  only  the  main  central  group  is 
quite  undisputed;  but  the  first  nine  mentioned  have 
a  close  connection  and  a  like  interest.  They  mark 
three  stages  of  a  well-defined  system  of  thought, 
which  we  know  best  by  the  name  of  Paul.  This  sys- 
tem turns  upon  two  points  or  pivots,  —  one  of  chief 
importance  in  the  history  of  speculative  doctrine,  the 
other  in  the  view  of  Christianity  as  a  moral  power 
in  the  world.  I  shall  attempt  here  only  a  brief  and 
imperfect  exhibition  of  each. 

I.  Paul's  doctrine  of  Christ  is  not  only  very  marked 
and  striking  in  itself,  but  it  shows  exactly  the  transi- 
tion from  the  Messiah-doctrine  of  the  Jews  to  that 
order  of  speculation  which  has  been  dominant  in  the 
Church  ever  since. 

In  trying  to  understand  this  phase  of  opinion,  we 
must  bear  in  mind  that  Paul  had  never  known  Jesus 
as  a  man  —  "  after  the  flesh,"  as  he  phrases  it.  If 
he  had,  we  should  probably  have  never  known  any- 
thing of  his  Christology.  He  claimed  to  have  re- 
ceived knowledge  of  his  Lord  direct,  by  revelation. 
Such  knowledge  must  have  been  strongly  colored  by 
sentiment  and  imagination,  especially  in  such  a  mind 
as  Paul's,  impressed  as  he  always  was  by  the  power- 
ful and  haunting  remembrance  of  the  vision  near 
Damascus.  Whatever  else  we  may  think  of  Paul's 
opinion  on  this  matter,  we  must  attempt,  at  any  rate, 
to  conceive  it  as  psychologically  true. 

We  must  remember,  too,  that  he  was  first  of  all 
and  intensely  a  Jew,  in  belief,  in  habit,  and  in  edu- 
cation. His  starting-place  was  not  the  simple  and 
unwarped  desire  of  speculative  truth,  which  we  might 


THE    CHEISTOLOGY   OF   PAUL.  37 

look  for  in  a  thorough-bred  Greek  philosopher,  but  an 
eager  attachment  to  and  apprehension  of  a  particular 
order  of  truth,  developed  in  Hebrew  schools,  assum- 
ing a  distinct  historic  background,  and  a  definite 
grasp  upon  the  future.  The  widening  out  and  ideal- 
izing of  his  earlier  messianic  creed  we  may  conceive 
as  the  work  and  the  growth  of  those  secluded  years 
in  Tarsus,  after  his  conversion,  before  Barnabas  sum- 
moned him  to  the  front  at  Antioch.* 

1.  First  of  all,  accordingly,  we  have  the  fervent  ex- 
pression, in  "  Thessalonians,"  of  faith  in  the  risen  and 
glorified  Messiah,  and  the  vivid  assurance,  which,  if 
not  Paul  himself,  at  any  rate  his  hearers  must  have 
taken  as  fact,  to  be  literally  and  presently  brought  to 
pass  :  f  "  The  Lord  himself  shall  descend  from  heaven 
with  a  shout,  with  the  voice  of  the  archangel,  and 
with  the  trump  of  God;  and  the  dead  in  Christ  shall 
rise  first ;  then  we  that  are  alive  and  remain  shall  be 
caught  up  together  with  them  in  the  clouds,  to  meet 
the  Lord  in  the  air :  and  so  shall  we  ever  be  with  the 
Lord."  I 

This  second  coming  of  Christ  has  about  it  still  the 
vindictive  temper,  and  the  promise  of  a  sweet  revenge, 
so  characteristic  of  the  elder  creed  :  "  It  is  a  righteous 
thing  with  God  to  recompense  tribulation  to  them 
that  trouble  you  "  ;  and  Jesus  will  be  "  revealed  from 
heaven,  with  his  mighty  angels,  in  naming  fire  taking 
vengeance  on  them  that  know  not  God,  ....  who  shall 

*  About  a.  d.  40-50. 

t  All  the  allusions  to  Christ  in  the  first  epistle,  and  most  of 
those  in  the  second,  are  qualified  by  the  expression  li  waiting,"' 
"hope,"  "  coming  "  (irapovaia),  or  the  like. 

t  1  Thess.  iv.  16,  17. 


38  SAINT   PAUL. 

be  punished  with  everlasting  destruction  from  the  pres- 
ence of  the  Lord  and  from  the  glory  of  his  power."  * 
This  is  the  first  stage  of  Paul's  thought :  it  is  simply 
a  vivid  and  expanded  copy  of  that  vision  of  Daniel, 
repeated  as  a  promise  and  a  solace  to  a  longing,  wait- 
ing, suffering  church. 

2.  But  this  first  close  and  impatient  expectation 
must  pass  away.  Incessant  cares,  varieties  of  peril, 
daily  duties,  the  need  of  controversy,  instruction,  and 
advice,  all  served  to  put  off,  thin  out,  refine  this  grosser 
vision,  and  irradiate  it  with  a  purer,  inner  light. 

In  the  "  Corinthians  "  Christ  is  first  of  all  a  spiritual 
lord  and  chief,  "  head  of  every  man,"  soul  of  a  body 
having  many  members,  the  mystic  "rock"  of  the  old 
covenant,  the  source  of  doctrine  and  authority,  in 
whose  name  believers  are  "  washed,  sanctified,  justi- 
fied," "by  whom  are  all  things,  and  we  by  him." 
Paul  knows  him  now  in  person :  "  Have  I  not  seen 
Jesus  Christ  our  Lord  ? "  He  speaks  of  "  visions  and 
revelations  of  the  Lord,"  which  he  distinguishes  from 
anything  that  can  be  had  by  sight  of  the  eye  or 
knowledge  after  the  flesh. 

To  the  Galatians,  again,  he  speaks  of  Christ  as  the 
Deliverer  who  has  "  redeemed  us  from  the  curse  of 
the  law"  and  has  lifted  off  yokes  and  burdens:  the 
disciple  is  "  no  more  a  servant,  but  a  son ;  and,  if  a 
son,  then  an  heir  of  God  through  Christ." 

But  perhaps  it  is  in  the  epistle  to  the  Romans  that, 
after  toiling  through  much  knotty  and  tangled  argu- 
ment about  the  law  of  sin  and  the  soul  straggling  in 
bonds  of  flesh,  he  bursts  (in  the  magnificent  eighth 

*  2  Thess.  i.  6-9;  compare  1  Thess.  ii.  14-16. 


EPISTLES   OF   CAPTIVITY.  39 

chapter)  into  the  very  noblest  expression  of  grateful 
joy  in  Christ  as  a  pure  spiritual  presence,  felt  in  the 
soul,  to  reconcile,  comfort,  and  uplift.  It  is  still  the 
risen  Christ  in  heaven,  "  at  the  right  hand  of  God,"  as 
in  the  old  prophetic  vision ;  but  it  is  now  of  a  purely 
gracious  celestial  force  he  speaks,  manifesting  itself 
in  the  soul's  own  comfort,  joy,  victory,  strength,  and 
peace.  "  I  am  persuaded  that  neither  death  nor  life, 
nor  angels  nor  principalities  nor  powers,  nor  things 
present  nor  things  to  come,  nor  height,  nor  depth,  nor 
any  other  created  thing,*  shall  be  able  to  separate  us 
from  the  love  of  God,  which  is  in  Christ  Jesus  our 
Lord." 

3.  The  later  letters  have  been  called  "  epistles  of 
captivity."  Paul  writes  as  a  "  prisoner  of  the  Lord  " 
from  Borne,  in  declining  strength,  debarred  from  his 
eager  activities,  very  likely  in  clear  anticipation  of 
the  inevitable  end.  His  thought  of  Christ  is  now 
wholly  reverent,  vague,  idealizing.  He  has  given  full 
play  to  the  imagination,  fed  both  by  the  familiar 
teaching  of  Jewish  schools  and  by  the  forms  of  specu- 
lative philosophy  that  had  taken  so  strong  hold  on 
the  Jewish  mind  in  Alexandria  and  elsewhere,  which 
had  come  to  him,  doubtless,  in  the  way  of  his  learned 
education.  Now,  the  Christ  of  his  revering  fancy 
retains  no  more  the  sharp  outline  of  the  messianic 
hope,  retains  but  the  faintest  trace  of  human  person- 
ality ;  he  becomes  a  type  of  that  Divine  Energy  which 
it  was  the  chief  study  of  religious  speculation  then  to 
personify  in  some  form  less  vague  than  the  Infinite, 
less  precise  than  a  Person  or  a  Will. 

*  More  strictly,  "  any  different  order  of  creation." 


40  SAINT   PAUL. 

Paul  does  not  use  the  phraseology  about  the  Divine 
Word  which  presently  became  so  familiar  in  Christian 
philosophy  ;  but  the  Christ  of  the  "  Philippians  "  and 
"  Colossians "  is  a  bright  and  vivid  reflex  of  those 
emanations  of  half-oriental  imagination :  "  the  bright- 
ness of  the  Father's  glory  and  express  image  of  his 
person"  ;  "in  the  form  of  God,  though  not  claiming 
equality  with  God  "  ;  a  pre-existent  being,  who  "  takes 
upon  him  the  form  of  a  servant "  ;  "  image  of  the  in- 
visible, first-born  of  the  whole  creation " ;  "  through 
whom  all  things  were  created,  in  heaven  or  earth." 
This  eager,  fervent,  passionate  expression  of  reverence 
and  homage,  —  cleaving  still  to  the  image  of  a  suffer- 
ing and  glorified  Saviour,  to  one  who,  "  though  he  was 
rich,  yet  for  our  sakes  became  poor,"  and  "  took  on 
him  the  condition  of  a  slave,"  to  die  a  slave's  death 
on  the  cross,*  —  retaining  as  it  does  the  phrases  that 
had  been  the  familiar  utterance  of  Jewish  hope,  is 
the  final  exaltation  and  idealizing  of  that  hope.  It 
was  the  one  thing  which  —  by  a  splendid  quickening 
vision,  by  a  great  surge,  as  it  were,  of  religious  en- 
thusiasm, and  warm,  passionate  emotion  —  floated  the 
yet  crude  and  hesitating  thought  of  the  Christian 
body  beyond  the  boundaries  that  held  it,  and  made 
possible  the  conquests  of  an  aggressive  faith. 

II.  The  other  point,  still  more  important  in  con- 
sidering Christianity  as  a  moral  power  in  the  world, 
is  Paul's  doctrine  of  Sin  and  Justification.  I  should 
like,  if  I  could,  to  get  rid  of  all  theological  preposses- 

*  This  is  the  image  which  more  than  any  other  impressed  the 
imagination  of  the  early  Church,  and  is  most  dwelt  on  in  appeals 
as  to  the  character  of  Christ's  sacrifice. 


THE   GENTILE  WORLD.  41 

sion  in  regard  to  the  meaning  of  those  terms.  Paul 
was,  first  of  all,  a  Jew,  "  a  Hebrew  of  the  Hebrews." 
Now,  whatever  else  the  Hebrew  tradition  taught,  it 
certainly  did  teach  the  worship  of  "a  Power,  not 
ourselves,  that  makes  for  righteousness."  It  certainly 
did  teach,  along  with  much  that  was  narrow,  perverse, 
grotesque,  a  very  close  and  anxious  obedience  to  a 
"  law  of  righteousness."  By  a  thousand  petty  symbols 
of  ritual  purification  it  enforced  the  notion  of  an  ideal 
purity  as  an  attribute  of  God,  and  as  the  aim  of  man's 
better  life.  And  over  against  all  this,  conceived  as  it 
was  with  the  impassioned  vividness  characteristic  of 
the  man,  Paul  saw  —  what  ? 

I  will  not  speak  in  general  terms  of  "  a  world  lying  in 
wickedness,"  —  the  familiar  exaggeration  of  the  apolo- 
gists, one  side  all  black,  the  other  all  bright.  It  was 
no  such  thing.  The  life  of  Agricola  or  Germanicus, 
as  afterwards  of  Trajan,  shows  that  manhood  and 
public  virtue  were  not  extinct  in  Rome.  The  stories 
of  Eponina,  of  Arria,  of  the  elder  Agrippina,  show 
that  womanly  honor  and  domestic  love  still  remained. 
The  correspondence  of  Pliny,  and  the  later  possibili- 
ties of  the  Antonines  and  of  Epictetus,  show  that 
many  of  the  graces  of  life,  and  some  of  its  noblest 
virtues,  survived  among  those  who  either  had  heard 
nothing  of  the  new  faith,  or  else  deliberately  preferred 
the  old.  But  I  will  say,  for  specific  charges,  read  the 
first  chapter  of  "  Komans " ;  and,  for  comment,  read 
Tacitus,  read  Juvenal,  read  Seneca,  read  if  you  will 
Petronius,  written  at  the  very  time  Paul  lived  "in  his 
own  hired  house  "  at  Eome. 

Against  that  insolent  riot  of  indulgence  his  ethics, 


42  SAINT  PAUL. 

at  once  austere  and  humane,  stands  out  in  superb 
relief.  "What  he  calls  Sin  had  a  very  real  and  intense 
signification  to  his  mind ;  it  forced  a  heavy  burden 
and  challenge  upon  his  conscience.*  In  what  he  says 
of  the  Divine  judgment  of  sin  he  does  not  once  appeal, 
except  by  vague  allusion,  to  the  terrors  of  a  future 
world,  so  strongly  pronounced  in  the  Jewish  popular 
imagination,  and  reflected  so  powerfully  in  the  Apoca- 
lypse and  the  parables  of  Jesus.  He  speaks  of  the 
evil  thing  itself :  the  source  of  it,  in  human  passion 
and  infirmity;  the  law  of  it,  that  it  makes  man  its 
slave;  the  result  of  it,  in  wretchedness,  despair,  and 
death. 

Paul's  theory  of  moral  evil  is  mixed  up  with  some 
traditional  belief  of  inheritance  from  Adam ;  with 
some  technical  philosophy  of  a  threefold  nature, — 
body,  soul,  and  spirit ;  with  some  shadowy  view  of  a 
"  spiritual  body  "  in  the  resurrection,  to  be  free  from 
the  corruption  of  grosser  flesh.  But,  apart  from  all 
matters  of  mere  opinion,  I  do  not  know  where  we 
could  go  for  an  equally  keen  and  profound  sense  of 
moral  evil  in  itself.  And,  go  where  we  will,  I  do  not 
think  we  can  find  anywhere  so  noble,  so  delicate,  so 
elevated,  so  austerely  sweet,  a  code  of  ethics  as  we 
find  scattered  through  the  writings  of  Paul.  The 
defects  lie  on  the  side  of  social  questions  as  they 
come  to  us  among  our  political  liberties  in  a  more 
complex  civilization ;  the  errors  are  almost  all  from 
a  certain  ascetic  vein  (not  very  dangerous  to  us),  or 

*  Sin  (a/xapTia)  is  conceived  by  Paul,  in  strict  accord  with  the 
realistic  philosophy  of  the  time,  as  an  objective  reality,  and  not 
merely  a  phase  of  moral  experience.     See  Komans  vii.  17. 


THE   ETHICS   OF   PAUL.  43 

else  from  sundry  odd  prejudices  and  grossnesses  of 
the  Jewish  schools. 

The  Pauline  ethics  differs  from  that  of  the  Gospel 
in  being  not  purely  ideal  or  sentimental,  but  practi- 
cal and  definite.  Tor  it  is  to  be  noticed  that  the 
Christian  scriptures  contain,  not  one  type  of  ethics, 
but  two  :  one  purely  individual,  ideal,  spiritual,  found 
in  the  Gospels ;  the  other  social  and  organic,  assum- 
ing the  mixed  duties  and  relations  of  a  somewhat 
complex  society,  found  in  the  Epistles.*  The  back- 
ground of  the  first  is  the  simplicity  of  village  life,  or 
else  the  austere  purity  of  Hebrew  worship ;  the  other 
is  incessantly  conscious  of  sharp  contrasts  in  human 
condition,  and  of  the  corruption  and  cruelty  of  that 
profligate  age.  And,  in  Paul's  exposition  of  it,  it  is 
matched,  intentionally  and  intensely,  point  for  point, 
against  the  degrading  doctrine  and  practice  of  the 
gentile  world.  I  am  sorry  that  I  cannot  take  time 
to  illustrate  this ;  but  there  is  less  need,  since  nine 
tenths  of  the  best  Christian  teaching  on  the  subject 
(it  is  hardly  too  much  to  say)  is  made  up  of  illustra- 
tion and  expansion  of  the  texts  of  Paul. 

But,  if  this  were  all,  it  would  not  constitute,  prop- 
erly speaking,  a  moral  force,  any  more  than  that 
average  tone  of  exposition  just  spoken  of.  It  might 
amount  to  no  more  than  the  eloquent  declamation 
of  Stoics  like  Seneca,  weak-kneed  when  the  special 

*  It  is  worth  while  to  notice  here  that  the  exaggeration  of  the 
former  type  led  to  the  various  forms  of  Christian  asceticism  and 
solitary  life,  while  the  other  made  the  hase  of  ecclesiastical  organ- 
ization; and  that  they  will  be  found  represented  respectively  in 
the  distinction,  so  sharply  drawn  in  later  years,  between  the  regu- 
lar (or  monastic)  and  the  secular  clergy. 


44  SAINT   PAUL. 

temptation  came :  indeed,  it  is  believed  by  many, 
with  some  show  of  likelihood,  that  Seneca  was  a  seri- 
ous student  and  correspondent  of  Paul ;  or  it  might 
amount  to  no  more  than  the  gloomy  and  sceptic  sat- 
ire of  Tacitus  or  Juvenal.  What  made  Paul's  doc- 
trine of  sin  a  moral  power  among  men  was  his  ovm 
conviction  of  sin.  Here,  again,  I  have  to  use  a  theo- 
logical phrase,  reluctantly,  because  there  is  no  other. 
But  the  fact  itself  is  easy  to  see  in  a  study  of  the 
man.  A  certain  nervous  and  morbid  temperament, 
native  in  him,  was  prone  to  exaggerate  whatever 
touched  personal  feeling;  his  strict  training  in  the 
Law  made  him  intensely  conscious  of  whatever  bore 
on  personal  conduct;  a  certain  eagerness  to  assume 
responsibility,  to  make  any  given  task  his  own,  is 
seen  in  his  hasty  undertaking  of  the  charge  to  crush 
the  Galilsean  heresy  at  a  blow.  But  here  was  the  one 
horrible  thing  which  he  could  never  hide  or  disguise : 
that  battered  head,  that  crushed  and  bleeding  form  of 
the  martyr  Stephen,  and  he  standing  by,  eagerly  "  con- 
senting to  his  death."  That  one  thing,  in  his  eyes, 
made  him  —  no,  showed  him  —  "  the  chief  of  sin- 
ners " ;  and  it  is  as  if  we  saw  him  with  his  head 
bowed  and  his  face  hidden,  when  he  says,  "  I  am 
meanest  of  the  apostles,  and  not  worthy  to  be  called 
an  apostle,  because  I  persecuted  the  church  of  God." 

The  germ  of  his  moral  power  lay  in  this,  then,  that 
he  frankly  rated  himself — not  simply  by  self-con- 
demnation and  regret,  but  by  passionate  and  deep 
contrition  —  among  the  very  ones  who  most  needed 
the  deliverance  he  announced.  To  exhibit  this  point 
fully  it  would  be  necessary  to  show  those  symptoms 


HIS   RELIGIOUS   CONVICTION.  45 

of  a  strange  and  eager  craving  for  expiation  by  any 
sort  of  religious  rite,  common  alike  in  the  Jewish 
and  Pagan  world.*  The  real  expiation,  the  only  ex- 
piation possible,  Paul  taught,  —  and  he  taught  it  with 
conviction  and  with  power  because  he  knew  it,  —  must 
be  found  in  a  crisis  of  religious  experience,  and  come 
from  an  act  of  faith.  All  this  is  wrapped  about  in 
"  Galatians  "  with  strange  subtilties  of  argument  that 
mean  nothing  to  us.  It  is  joined  in  "  Corinthians  " 
with  technical  points  of  anthropology,  and  curious 
glimpses  of  personal  experience.  It  is  wrought  up 
in  "Ptomans"  into  the  most  intense  and  passionate 
expression  of  the  burden  and  the  terror  of  a  soul 
confronted  with  the  awful  law  of  holiness :  "  0 
wretched  man  that  I  am !  who  shall  deliver  me  from 
the  body  of  this  death  ? "  And  then  the  peace,  sudden 
and  sweet  as  a  child's  sleep  after  an  agony  of  fright, 
when  once  the  reconciling  moment  has  come :  "  The 
Spirit  itself  beareth  witness  with  our  spirit  that  we 
are  the  children  of  God ;  and  if  children,  then  heirs,  — 
heirs  of  God  and  joint  hews  with  Christ ! —  that  if  we 
suffer  with  him  we  may  be  also  glorified  together." 

So,  with  all  the  wickedness  and  the  bondage  that 
confronted  him  in  the  spectacle  of  the  world  as  it 
was,  —  the  gods  all  dying  or  dead,  old  pagan  faiths 
fast  fading  out,  political  freedom  perished,  a  frenzy 
of  vice  and  a  gloom  of  superstition  invading  all  the 
sanctuaries  of  human  life,  —  Paul  was  able  to  appeal 
in  the  tone  of  absolute  conviction,  courage  and  hope. 
Whatever  was  bitter  and  intolerable  in  the  evil  of 
the  world,  he  had  shared  it  too.     Whatever  of  good- 

*  See  below,  pp.  98,  99. 


46  SAINT   PAUL. 

ness  men  despaired  of,  he  not  only  believed  in,  but 
knew  as  a  fact  in  his  own  life :  it  had  broken  upon 
him  as  a  great  light  out  of  a  black  cloud ;  and  so  he 
could  change  their  sullen  despondency  into  an  im- 
measurable and  glorious  hope. 

For  the  present  these  are  the  elements  of  power 
which  we  have  to  recognize  in  the  life  of  Paul.  I  do 
not  add  to  them  that  activity  in  the  building  up  of 
churches,  and  their  regulation,  in  which  so  much  of 
his  work  consisted :  first,  because,  when  the  convic- 
tion and  the  brotherhood  are  strong  enough,  they  will 
make  their  own  organized  forms  at  any  rate ;  and 
secondly,  because  that  model  organization  of  the 
church  at  Eome,  which  was  presently  to  embody  all 
of  Christianity  that  men  knew  or  cared  about,  in- 
cluded so  many  other  elements  of  power  that  we 
hardly  think  of  it  as  an  apostolic  work  at  all.  To 
discuss  the  forms  and  the  beliefs  of  the  little  religious 
communities  which  were  all  Paul  knew,  would  be 
mere  antiquarianism,  It  is  in  no  antiquarian  tem- 
per, but  as  students  of  those  great  permanent  forces 
which  did  once  and  can  again  move  the  world,  and 
create  new  systems  and  societies  on  the  ruins  of  the 
old,  that  we  should  try  to  understand  the  genius,  the 
life,  and  the  work  of  the  Apostle  Paul. 


III. 

CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT  OF  THE  SECOND 
CENTURY. 

WHEN  we  shift  our  view  to  the  second  Christian 
century,  the  first  thing  that  arrests  us  is  the 
wide  gulf  that  parts  us  from  the  comparatively  clear 
ground  of  the  apostolic  period.  The  interval  between 
the  last  of  Paul's  undisputed  epistles  and  the  first  of 
the  extant  apologists  is  something  more  than  eighty 
years.  It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  that  whole 
space  is  covered  with  a  heavy  mist,  out  of  which,  at 
its  close,  a  few  well-defined  figures  are  seen  erneming. 
Any  bridge  across  it  must  be  built,  so  to  speak,  "  in 
the  air."  We  can  erect  our  two  towers,  but  the  cables 
will  not  meet. 

Now  this  period  of  eighty  years  is  precisely  that 
covered  by  unsettled  controversies  respecting  the  au- 
thenticity, date,  and  authorship  of  the  later  New  Tes- 
tament writings,  including  all  the  Four  Gospels ;  or 
illustrated  by  historical  glimpses  so  dim  and  few  that 
a  chance  notice  of  Tacitus  and  an  official  letter  of 
Pliny  become  our  most  instructive  documents.  The 
gulf  hides,  so  to  speak,  the  very  secret  of  Christianity 
itself;  for,  as  we  shall  see  further  on,  what  we  find  in 
germ  only  in  the  apostolic  period  —  in  particular,  the 
identification  of  the  Logos  with  the  person  of  Jesus  — 


48      CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT   OF  THE   SECOND   CENTURY. 

then  took  root  and  substance  and  form.  This  subter- 
ranean life  of  the  first  Christian  age  has  its  most 
touching  symbol  in  the  name  which  belongs  to  just 
that  period,  when  those  germs  were  brooding  there,  — 
"the  Church  of  the  Catacombs."  Of  course  we  do 
not  forget  the  beauty  and  interest  of  the  few  half- 
legendary  accounts  we  have  of  this  period,  or  the 
purely  religious  value  of  some  of  the  writings  of  the 
so-called  Apostolic  Fathers.  But,  for  purposes  of 
strict  consecutive  history,- it  is  not  too  much  to  say 
that  we  have  to  jump  a  gulf  of  more  than  eighty 
years. 

This  statement  should  not  be  taken  for  more  than 
it  distinctly  asserts.  Its  limitation  is  in  the  phrase 
"strict  consecutive  history."  The  period  spoken  of 
has  even  a  rich  literature  of  its  own,  including  all  the 
Gospels  (probably),  as  well  as  several  of  the  later 
Epistles,  the  Apocalypse,  and  the  Apostolic  Fathers. 
But  the  authorship  or  date  of  few  if  any  of  these  is 
quite  undisputed ;  while  the  events  of  the  period  are 
almost  all  in  good  part  legendary  or  apocryphal.  The 
existence  of  the  gulf  is  recognized  by  all  historians ; 
but  its  importance  in  the  history  of  doctrinal  develop- 
ment is  not  always  sufficiently  considered. 

ISTow  the  existence  of  this  gulf  is  not  a  thing  to  be 
particularly  wondered  at.  A  very  nearly  parallel 
case  occurs  close  by  in  the  strange  intellectual  slum- 
ber which  fell  upon  the  Eoman  mind  after  the  storms 
of  the  Bepublic  had  subsided  to  a  sullen  peace,  and 
which  lasted  for  near  a  century.  Virgil  and  Horace 
had  both  found  shelter  from  those  storms  in  the 
patronage   of  Augustus ;    Ovid  was  born   the   year 


A    PERIOD    OF   SILENCE.  49 

that  Cicero  died.  After  these  court  poets  passed 
away,  only  here  and  there  a  satire,  or  a  moral  essay, 
or  a  discourse  of  rhetoric,  breaks  the  long  silence,  till 
comparative  liberty  and  security  brought  with  it  the 
►great  writers  of  the  silver  age.  Anecdote  and  legend, 
often  apocryphal  and  obscure,  are  what  make  most  of 
such  history  as  we  have  of  the  earlier  Caesars  and 
their  age.  So  that  the  forty  years  during  which  Pal- 
estine comes  into  strong  relief —  counting  from 
Matthew  to  Josephus  —  make  a  sort  of  oasis  in  a 
century  extraordinarily  barren  of  events  or  men, 
though  in  the  full  glare  of  all  the  imperial  splendor 
and  all  the  ostentatious  luxury  of  the  Eome  of  the 
Caesars. 

I  do  not  propose  to  go  into  any  of  the  literary  con- 
troversies, or  any  of  the  curious  antiquarian  research, 
that  belong  to  this  obscure  period.  My  business  is 
simply  with  what  we  find  in  the  condition  of  Chris- 
tian thought  at  the  end  of  it.  For  we  must  not,  at  all 
events,  suppose  that  thought  was  idle  during  all  those 
years.  On  the  contrary,  there  must  have  been  a 
mental  movement  going  on,  whose  activity  and  inten- 
sity are  but  feebly  reflected  to  us,  —  partly  in  a  few 
stray  expressions  gathered  from  epistle  or  anecdote, 
but  more  distinctly  (as  hinted  before)  in  the  figures 
seen  emerging  from  the  mist  that  overhangs  the 
gulf. 

In  fact,  the  period  may  be  best  described  as  one  of 
an  intense,  warm,  brooding  life.  It  was  a  period  of 
incubation,  during  which  were  evolved  in  dim  embryo 
the  types  that  shaped  the  theological  conflicts  of  many 
an  after  age.     Landed  well  on  this  side  of  it,  we  find 


50     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT   OF   THE   SECOND   CENTURY. 

the  Logos  doctrine  fully  developed,  —  shaped,  indeed, 
into  a  pretty  well  defined  trinity  in  Justin  and 
Athenagoras,  who  appeal  to  intelligent  pagans  (like 
Aurelius)  to  recognize  it  as  a  theism  at  least  as  good 
as  the  Greek  pantheon.*  It  is  not  of  the  slightest  con- 
sequence whether  we  date  this  Logos  doctrine  from 
Philo,  before  the  gospel  times,!  or  fr°m  John,  towards 
the  end  of  the  first  century,  or  from  Christian  specu- 
lative schools,  early  in  the  second.  What  we  have  to 
observe  is,  that  it  has  already  reached  a  degree  of 
maturity  to  which  later  controversies  or  councils  can 
only  add  a  few  finishing  touches  by  way  of  exacter 
definition ;  and  that  the  mission  of  Jesus,  on  its  divine 
or  providential  side,  has  already  become  thoroughly 
identified,  in  a  certain  personal,  exclusive,  and  dog- 
matic sense,  with  the  advent  of  that  Logos  which, 
existing  with  God  from  the  beginning,  and  in  its  own 
nature  divine,  "  was  made  flesh  "  in  him.  The  source 
of  this  conviction  is  not  at  present  under  discussion  ; 

*  This  is  not  the  same  as  the  developed  trinity  of  the  later 
creeds  :  in  particular,  the  distinction  between  the  Logos  and  the  Holy 
Spirit  is  quite  undefined.  The  words  of  Justin  are  :  "  Both  Him 
[God]  and  the  Son  who  came  forth  from  him  and  taught  us  these 
things,  and  the  host  of  the  other  good  angels,  who  follow  and  are 
marie  like  to  him,  and  the  prophetic  Spirit,  we  worship  and  adore." 
Athenagoras  says  (Chap.  10),  "  Who  would  not  be  astonished,  to 
hear  men  called  atheists,  who  speak  of  the  Father  God  and  of  the 
Son  God  and  of  the  Holy  Spirit,  and  who  declare  both  their  power  in 
union  and  their  distinction  in  order  ?  .  .  .  The  Son  [is]  in  the  Father, 
and  the  Father  in  the  Son,  by  unity  and  power  of  Spirit.  Mind 
and  Reason  of  the  Father  [is]  the  Son  of  God."  This  last  expres- 
sion should  be  particularly  noted,  as  very  characteristic  of  the 
thought  of  the  age. 

t  See  the  illustrations  in  "  Hebrew  Men  and  Times,"  pp.  374, 
375. 


THE   DOCTRINE   OF   REDEMPTION.  51 

but  its  existence  at  this  time,  with  whatever  empha- 
sis or  whatever  fulness  my  words  have  already  im- 
plied, is  the  fact  to  be  distinctly  seen.  The  time  I 
refer  to  is  from  about  a.  d.  150,  the  date  of  Justin's 
first  Apology,  to  that  of  Athenagoras,  about  175. 

One  other  thing  before  we  come  to  the  sharper 
characteristics  of  Christian  thought  at  this  time.  The 
descent  of  the  Logos,  in  the  person  of  Jesus,  was  for  a 
special  work  of  redemption,  or  emancipation  from  the 
dominion  of  Evil.  This  is,  of  course,  a -simple  com- 
monplace of  Christian  theology.  But  look  at  it  a 
moment,  attentively,  and  it  seems  to  connect  itself  by 
natural  evolution  with  two  things :  first,  the  Jewish 
expectation  of  a  national  deliverance,  of  which  enough 
has  been  said  before ;  and,  second,  the  drift  of  Greek 
speculation,  more  particularly  during  the  three  hun- 
dred years  previous.  That  vein  of  scepticism  as  to 
ultimate  truth,  which  crops  out  in  Euripides  and  in 
Socrates,  took  a  new  turn  after  the  great  speculative 
period  of  Plato  and  his  school :  it  turned  men's  minds 
to  moral  problems,  and  the  search  for  the  "  chief  end 
of  man,"  or  the  highest  good.  Naturally,  this  made 
them  keenly  conscious  of  existing  evil ;  and  the  prob- 
lem of  philosophy  more  and  more  was  the  problem  of 
escape  from  it,  —  the  Epicureans  by  way  of  acquies- 
cence, and  the  Stoics  by  way  of  defiance.  The  Epi- 
cureans preached  contentment  and  placidity  of  soul. 
The  Stoics  kept  asserting  that  evil  is  only  in  the 
seeming,  as  if  they  hoped  by  incessant  repetition  to 
convince  themselves  that  it  is  so  :  in  some  of  Cicero's 
dialogues,  for  instance  (as  the  Fifth  Tusculan),  it  is 
almost  startling  to  find  a  rehearsal,  as  it  were,  of  the 


52     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT   OF   THE   SECOND   CENTURY. 

early  Christian  creed  of  emancipation  of  the  soul  by 
martyrdom  for  the  truth. 

"The  whole  creation,"  says  Paul,  "groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now,  waiting  to  be 
delivered."  So  that  the  interest  with  which  the  claims 
of  Christianity  were  listened  to  from  the  first  was 
something  more  than  a  speculative  interest  in  some 
new  theory  as  to  the  Divine  nature  and  the  law  of 
life.  So  far  as  the  gospel  was  true  at  all,  it  was  true 
as  a  gospel  of  Salvation,  —  that  is,  of  actual  rescue 
from  an  actual  calamity.  That  calamity  was  felt  to 
be  in  the  very  conditions  of  life  upon  this  earth,  as 
men  have  received  them.  That  rescue  receded  more 
and  more,  in  men's  thought,  from  the  notion  of  any 
special  deliverance,  such  (for  example)  as  the  Jews 
hoped,  which  did  needful  service  as  scaffolding  for  a 
time. 

The  thought  of  it  became  inevitably,  more  and 
more,  an  intense  craving  and  yearning :  as  they  be- 
held, on  one  side,  the  political  bondage,  the  insecurity 
and  terror,  the  frequent  crises  of  great  suffering,  the 
moral  corruption  of  society,  the  doom  of  death  that 
overhung  the  world  like  a  pall ;  or  dreamed,  on  the 
other  hand,  of  a  possible  realm  of  liberty  and  bliss. 
The  very  despair  that  fell  on  their  souls,  when  the 
golden  age  that  Yirgil  looked  for  under  Augustus,  or 
that  Galilaean  zealots  promised  in  a  revolt  from  Eome, 
was  set  against  the  terrible  reality  men  saw.  Their 
very  despair  made  them  long  and  ask  more  passion- 
ately for  whatever  hope  might  be  given  them  in  the 
faith  which  now  claimed  to  be  the  one  and  final 
refuge. 


TWO    MODES    OF    CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT.  53 

We  have,  I  say,  to  conceive  of  this,  or  something 
like  it,  as  the  process  going  on,  during  those  long  years 
of  silence,  in  the  class  of  minds  most  apt  to  entertain 
such  thoughts.  The  bland  moralisms  of  Seneca,  the 
scornful  satire  of  Juvenal,  the  caustic  portraiture  of 
Tacitus,  the  frank  urbanity  of  Pliny,  the  light  mockery 
of  Lucian,  need  not  deceive  us  as  to  what  was  really 
brooding  in  the  mind  of  the  age.  An  anecdote  of 
Josephus,  a  hint  in  Plutarch's  Morals,  a  reminiscence 
of  Justin,  is  far  more  likely  to  reflect  the  mood  of 
mind  sure  to  show  itself  in  the  next  great  evolution 
of  human  thought,  than  the  phrases  of  those  haughty 
and  cultured  men.  What  comes  into  literature  is  not 
merely,  and  not  even  so  much,  the  emotion  or  opinion 
of  the  hour ;  but,  rather,  what  has  been  brooded  on  in 
silence  for  one  generation,  before  it  comes  into  speech 
in  the  next,  and  then  goes  into  the  common  inherit- 
ance of  mankind. 

That  this  is  the  right  view  to  take  of  the  long 
interval  before  spoken  of  is  shown,  at  any  rate,  by 
the  very  remarkable  twofold  nature  of  the  phenome- 
non before  us,  as  soon  as  the  mist  is  lifted,  and  we  find 
ourselves  in  daylight  again,  amongst  articulating  men. 
The  phenomenon,  I  repeat,  is  not  single,  but  twofold. 
It  is  signified  to  us  in  the  names  of  the  two  groups 
that  stand  most  distinctly  before  us  at  the  middle  of 
the  second  century :  one,  a  school  already  fading  or 
becoming  extinct,  and  known  to  us  only  through  the 
attacks  or  confutations  of  its  opponents ;  the  other,  a 
company  of  men  who  speak  to  us  very  earnestly  the 
mind  of  the  early  Church,  and  have  traced  in  clear 
outline  the  speculative  or  moral  doctrine  to  be  filled 


54     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT    OF   THE    SECOND    CENTURY. 

in  by  later  times.  I  mean  the  Gnostics  and  the 
Apologists. 

I  shall  not  attempt  to  add  another  to  the  many  ex- 
positions of  the  tedious  and  fantastic  schemes  known 
as  Gnosticism.  For  myself,  not  only  I  can  get  into 
my  mind  no  intelligible  meaning  from  those  "  endless 
o-enealoo'ies,"  as  Irenaeus  states  them,  but  I  cannot 
easily  imagine  that  any  sane  mind  should  hold  them 
as  sober  matter  of  opinion,  much  less  take  them  as  the 
real  expression  of  objective  truth.  The  form  these 
speculations  took  seems  to  me  perfectly  worthless  as 
serving  to  interpret  to  our  mind  what  the  cast  of 
opinion  really  was,  except  as  an  eccentric  style  of 
mere  symbolism,  or  mere  analysis.  I  will  say  a  word 
of  this  presently.  But,  in  the  mean  time,  there  are 
two  points  which  it  seems  to  me  no  more  than  fair  to 
keep  in  view,  if  we  would  do  justice  to  the  men  who 
held  to  the  Gnostic  sects ;  that  is,  if  we  would  not 
think  of  them  as  mere  men  of  straw,  lay  figures, 
decked  with  impossible  habiliments,  winch  we  have 
no  occasion  to  think  of  as  serving  any  of  the  uses  of 
human  life. 

The  first  point  is,  that  Gnosticism  is  a  genuine  and 
legitimate  outgrowth  of  the  same  general  movement 
of  thought  which  shaped  the  Christian  dogma.  Quite 
evidently,  it  regarded  itself  as  the  true  interpretation 
of  the  Gospel,  and  for  a  generation  or  more  disputed 
its  title  to  be  that  interpretation  on  even  terms  with 
the  more  orthodox  view.  Why  it  eventually  failed, 
even  dishonorably  failed,  I  shall  consider  presently. 

Perhaps  the  chief  thing  that  we  find  hard  to  recon- 
cile to  our  mind  is  the  extremely  early  date  at  which  it 


WHAT   WAS   GNOSTICISM  ?  55 

appears.  The  Epistles  of  the  Testament  contain  many 
unmistakable  hints  and  traces  of  it.*  Within  fifty 
years  after  some  of  those  epistles  were  written  it  was 
already  on  the  wane,  and  in  thirty  years  more  it  was 
dead.  Yet  in  the  interval  it  had  been  a  full-fledged 
philosophy,  pretentious  and  superb  as  the  New  Pla- 
tonism  which  it  helped  serve  to  introduce,  and  seems 
to  caricature.  Not  a  vestige  of  it  remains,  except  in 
fragments  and  echoes  in  the  writings  of  its  assailants. 
But,  if  we  think  of  it.  the  very  fact  that  its  germs 
already  existed  in  the  apostolic  time  is  what  helps 
explain  it.  It  was,  in  a  sense,  the  double  or  anti- 
type of  Christianity,  —  a  reflex  in  men's  speculative 
thought  of  the  same  Life  which  the  Church  embodied 
in  another  way. 

In  the  second  place,  it  was  unquestionably  sincere, 

—  not  a  profane  mockery  and  travesty  of  the  truth. 
It  had  not,  apparently,  the  highest  order  of  sincerity: 
it  does  not  appear  that  any  of  the  Gnostics  held  any 
truth  so  sacred  that  they  were  ready  to  die  for  it. 
But  that  lay  in  their  conception  of  truth  itself.  Men 
do  not  die  for  an  opinion :  they  die  for  a  faith.  Gnosis, 
after  all,  was  "  opinion,"  not  "  knowledge,"  much  less 
faith.  Still,  it  was  an  opinion  bravely  and  loyally 
held,  in  spite  of  odium  and  hostility ;  and  it  persist- 
ently called  itself  "  Christian,"  at  a  time  when  the 
Christian  name  was  apt  to  invite  official  suspicion  or 
popular  rage.     Moreover  —  at  least  in  its  riper  forms 

—  it  had  two  marked  features  of  a  high  order  of  sin- 
cerity, even  if  not  the  highest.     It  had  a  discipline  of 

*  See,  for  example,  Colossians  i.  15,  et  seq.,  especially  the  ex- 
pressions irau  rb  irKripoifia  (i.  19),  and  dycravpbs  ttjs  yvuxrews  (ii.  3). 


56     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT   OF  THE   SECOND   CENTURY. 

its  own,  often  scrupulously  ascetic  and  severe  ;  and  it 
cultivated  the  religious  sentiment,  in  harmony  doubt- 
less with  its  own  style  of  thought,  with  abundant 
seeming  fervor.  It  had  hymns  of  its  own,  whole  vol- 
umes of  them,  while  orthodox  Christians  still  con- 
tented themselves  with  Jewish  Psalms.  Thus  in  all 
outward  seeming  —  except  its  incoherent  variety  of 
sects  —  it  might  well  appear  not  only  Christian,  which 
in  vehement  profession  (at  least)  it  was,  but  a  full- 
grown,  highly  developed  form  of  religion,  amply  en- 
titled to  hold  its  own  with  its  antagonist.  Nay,  its 
very  variety  of  sects  is  something  more  than  mere 
license  of  speculation,  or  an  untimely  birth  of  "  free 
religion."  It  is  a  testimony  to  something  ingenuous 
and  spontaneous  in  its  acceptance  of  the  Christian 
name.  It  is  at  least  as  good  an  evidence  of  genuine- 
ness and  sincerity  as  that  unity  of  creed,  enforced  by 
ecclesiastical  authority  or  social  penalties,  by  which 
the  Church  has  always  vindicated  its  claim  of  truth.* 
So  much  it  seemed  necessary  to  say,  for  historical 
justice'  sake,  of  those  outlying  groups  of  independent 
thinkers,  who  make  the  strangest  problem  of  early 
Christianity.  But  it  is  also  necessary  to  go  one  step 
further,  —  to  say  not  only  why  Gnosticism  failed  as 
an  interpreter  of  the  new  religious  life,  but  why  it  has 
justly  been  under  the  ban  of  more  serious  believers. 
And  this  is  not  because  of  the  scandals  and  immoral- 
ities charged  against  it.  Odium  at  least  as  bad  lay 
just  as  heavily  against  the  Christian  body  at  large  ; 

*  As  an  instructive  commentary  on  the  supposed  unity  and 
harmony  of  the  first  Christian  age,  Epiphanius  gives  us  a  list  of 
forty-three  distinct  "heresies"  (including  the  Gnostic),  belonging 
to  the  period  under  review. 


THE   SPECULATIVE    GNOSIS.  57 

and,  if  that  had  gone  down  in  the  great  persecution, 
it  would  have  gone  down  with  a  black  stigma  on  its 
name,  which  could  never  have  been  washed  off. 
What  Irenseus  said,  at  a  distance  and  long  after,  in 
theologic  hate,  may  go  for  what  it  is  worth.  The 
fatal  thing  in  Gnosticism  was  that  it  made  of  reli- 
gion a  theory  for  the  understanding,  and  not  a  life  to 
the  soul.  Its  creed,  or  "  gnosis,"  consisted  in  specula- 
tions about  the  origin  of  existence,  the  origin  of  evil, 
and  the  method  of  salvation,  —  by  turns  ascetic  and 
antinomian,  like  all  mere  speculative  creeds.  Con- 
sidered in  themselves,  these  speculations  may  have 
been  as  good  as  men  could  invent  then,  —  or  now 
either,  for  that  matter,  —  vain  and  fantastic  as  they 
appear  to  us.  They  were,  in  the  main,  a  perfectly 
legitimate  following  out  of  a  mode  of  thinking,  which 
not  only  has  the  sanction  of  great  names  like  Plato, 
but  is  at  bottom  the  same  from  which  the  Logos-doc- 
trine itself  was  evolved.  From  the  brightest  ortho- 
doxy to  the  blackest  heresy  is  but  a  step. 

In  a  matter  vague  and  abstract  like  this,  it  is 
always  best  to  see  how  the  same  problem  shows  itself 
to  a  modern  mind.  Read,  then,  that  chapter  in 
"  Ways  of  the  Spirit,"  where  an  analysis  is  given  of 
the  methods  by  which  men  have  attempted  to  find 
out  God,  —  in  other  words,  to  trace  the  passage  from 
Absolute  Beings  to  the  manifold  forms  of  actual  Exist- 
ence ;  and  notice  how  helpless  the  mind  is  at  every 
step,  till  it  seems  at  length  easiest  to  say,  that  there 
is  no  real  existence  at  all  except  pure  Intellect,  of 
which  matter  or  sensation  is  but  a  mood  of  experi- 
ence.    Now,  imagine  a  keen  and  speculative  mind, 


58     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT   OF   THE    SECOND    CENTURY. 

utterly  void  of  the  certitudes  of  science,  to  busy  it- 
self with  that  problem.  I  shall  have  to  return  to  this 
point  again,  when  we  come  to  the  realist  and  nomi- 
nalist discussions  of  the  Schoolmen.  So  now  I  will 
say  only  this.  That  great  impassable  gulf  from 
Infinite  to  Finite,  which  Plato  made  the  sphere  of 
divine  Intelligence,  in  which  lived  those  eternal  Ideas 
that  were  the  patterns  of  all  material  things,  the 
Gnostics  attempted  to  bridge  by  way  of  symbol  and 
analysis,  and  to  fill  up  with  iEons,  or  "  eternals," 
having  such  names  as  Thought,  Man,  Soul,  Wisdom, 
and  so  on,  giving  these  bleak  conceptions  a  certain 
fantastic  life,  and  sequence  by  way  of  emanation  or 
evolution* 

These  phantom-existences,  set  by  Valentin  us  in 
pairs,  male  and  female,  thirty  in  all,  and  made  to 
succeed  one  another  by  some  spectral  process  of  gen- 
eration, are  said  to  be  derived  from  the  Jewish 
Cabbala.  Their  names  are  the  carrying  out  of  a 
notion  we  find  in  Plato's  Parmenides,  that  everything 
which  exists  in  the  realm  of  life,  or  fact,  has  its  coun- 
terpart or  prototype  in  the  region  of  Ideas,  —  which 
are  made  to  have,  as  it  were,  a  shadowy  life  of  their 
own.     Thus,  in  the  scheme  of  Yalentinus  :  — 

Depth  (Father  of  All)  and  Silence  (or  Thought)  begat 
Mind  (unconscious  Intelligence  V)  and  Truth  ;  which  begat 
Reason  (Logos,  conscious  Intelligence)  and  Life;  which  begat 
Man  and  Ecclesia  (or  Church)  :   i.  e.  the  Ideal  Society,  f 

*  Words  of  like  but  inverse  meaning,  as  if  each  were  the  other's 
reflection  in  a  mirror.  Emanation  begins  with  the  highest  form 
of  being  and  works  downward  ;  Evolution  with  the  lowest,  and 
works  upward. 

t  These  eight  iEons  make  the  Valentinian  Ogdoad. 


A   PHILOSOPHY    OF   EVOLUTION.  59 

In  these  it  will  be  noticed  that  the  former  of  each 
pair  is  a  masculine  name,  and  the  latter  a  feminine  ; 
so  that  it  was  impossible  to  speak  of  them  except  as 
"  he "  or  "  she."  To  us  they  are  only  names,  like 
the  categories  of  modern  metaphysics;  but  to  the 
Greek  mind  their  very  grammatical  gender  suggested 
veritable  forms  of  life,  and  logical  analysis  itself  be- 
came a  sort  of  transcendental  theogony. 

We  may  put  the  problem  of  Gnosticism  from 
another  point  of  view,  something  as  follows.  The  age 
of  the  world  being  generally  assumed  to  be  between 
five  and  six  thousand  years  (more  precisely,  5200), 
the  question  naturally  occurs,  What  was  there,  then, 
before  that  time  (or,  as  they  would  put  it,  before  Time 
was)  ?  To  this  the  only  answer  can  be,  The  Infinite. 
But,  again,  is  this  an  infinite  Void  (the  Unknowable), 
or  an  infinite  Fulness  ?  Infinite  Fulness  (irX'npw/xa), 
replied  the  Gnostics  ;  and,  to  fill  out  the  conception 
of  it,  devised  their  wild  genealogies  and  cosmogonies. 
How,  through  the  ^Eons  Logos  and  Christ,  these 
were  connected  with  the  Christian  scheme,  and  how, 
through  the  Inferior  Wisdom  {Sophia  Achamoth)  with 
the  realm  of  Matter  and  of  Evil,  it  belongs  to  a  more 
detailed  exposition  to  set  forth. 

In  short,  Gnosticism  is  a  philosophy  of  evolution, 

vague,  premature,  with  no  substance  of  verifiable 

fact  or  scientific  method,  and  carried  over  from  the 
realm  of  things  to  that  of  abstractions  or  mere  visions 
and  phantasms  of  things.  Its  favorite  term  "  genesis  " 
—  or  Birth  by  natural  process  as  opposed  to  intelli- 
gent Creation  — is  attacked  by  the  Apologists,  ex- 
actly as  its  counterpart  "  evolution  "  is  attacked  to-day, 


60     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT   OF   THE    SECOND    CENTURY. 

on  the  ground  of  incompatibility  with  moral  freedom. 
To  illustrate  this  phase  of  it,  I  translate  here  a  Gnos- 
tic hymn  of  Valentinus,  given  by  Hippolytus,  which 
one  might  fancy  taken  straight  from  Shelley's  Prome- 
theus or  Goethe's  Faust :  *  — 

"  All  things  on  Spirit  borne  I  see  ! 
Flesh  from  Soul  depending, 

Soul  from  the  Air  forth-going, 
From  JEther  Air  descending, 

Fruits  from  the  Depth  o'erflowing  : 
So  from  the  Womb  springs  Infancy." 

All  these  speculations  seem  to  me  neither  better 
nor  worse  —  though  a  good  deal  more  poetic  —  than 
the  efforts  to  solve  the  problem  of  existence  which 
we  find  in  more  modern  times.  The  fatal  thing 
about  them  is  that  they  were  made  the  substance  or 
the  substitute  of  Religion.  In  calling  them  a  phi- 
losophy of  Evolution,  we  have  said  in  advance  how 
and  where  they  failed.  Schemes  of  evolution,  taken 
by  themselves,  do  not  give  us  the  specific  fact  of  Sin. 
If  not  avowedly,  at  any  rate  by  tendency  and  by  im- 
plication, they  deny  the  fact  of  moral  freedom.  In 
trying  to  account  for  Evil,  they  annihilate  its  nature 
as  the  conscience  apprehends  it,  —  the  wilful  viola- 
tion of  divine  law. 

Here  was  the  incurable  weakness  of  Gnosticism, 
its  fatal  Haw,  What  evil  it  recognized  was  in  the  na- 
ture of  things,  in  Matter  as  opposed  to  Mind.  That 
is,  it  was  natural  as  opposed  to  moral  evil ;  to  be 
known  by  Thought,  not  by  Conscience      Of  this  we 

*  The  rhythmic  form  of  the  Greek  may  be  found  in  Bunsen's 
"  Christianity  and  Mankind,"  Vol.  V.  p.  %. 


THE   GNOSTICS   AND   THE   APOLOGISTS.  61 

shall  see  more  when  we  come  to  Augustine's  con- 
flict with  that  final  form  of  Gnosticism  known  as 
Manichsean.  At  present,  we  have  to  do  only  with 
the  single  point  of  its  moral  impotence.  Gnosticism 
was  in  its  nature  absolutely  —  nay,  ridiculously  — 
incapable  of  what  I  have  before  called  "  ethical  pas- 
sion." To  save  society  in  those  days,  to  re-create  the 
world,  to  inaugurate  a  new  era  of  humanity  —  the 
task  which  Christianity  did  in  fact  achieve  —  was 
not  a  speculative,  it  was  a  moral  problem*  It  de- 
manded courage,  faith,  self-sacrifice  ;  a  willingness  to 
go  to  the  rack,  the  stake,  the  lions,  rather  than  say  a 
false  word,  or  do  an  act  capable  of  a  disloyal  inter- 
pretation. Such  tests  do  not  come  to  us  in  these 
days,  and  we  are  apt  to  forget  that  they  were  needed 
once.  When  Basilides  said  it  was  permitted  to  throw 
incense  on  a  pagan  chafing-dish,  or  mutter  a  prayer 
to  Ceesar  with  a  mental  reservation,  the  doom  of 
Gnosticism  was  sealed. 

Now,  side  by  side  with  the  Gnostics  in  the  field 
was  another  class  of  men  and  women  whom  we  call 
Confessors,  and  their  spokesmen  we  call  Apologists. 
Those  of  them  who  died  on  the  field  are  glorified  in 
the  church  record  as  saints  and  martyrs.  Their  tragic 
and  pathetic  story  is  well  told  by  Milman,  and  I  shall 
not  abridge  it  here.  Such  names  as  Ignatius  and 
Polycarp,  as  Blandina  and  Perpetua,  ought  to  be 
sufficiently  familiar.  But  it  is  very  interesting  to 
notice  the  style  of  thought  that  runs  through  the 

*  It  appears  to  me  that  in  his  very  interesting  exposition 
Maurice  misses  this  point,  which  is  more  distinctly  seen  by 
Mansel.  Maurice  is  a  good  deal  of  a  gnostic  himself,  in  the  fervor 
of  his  speculative  faith. 


62     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT    OF   THE   SECOND    CENTURY. 

Christian  writings  of  the  latter  half  of  the  century. 
We  trace  in  them  two  things  :  a  strong  ethical  reac- 
tion against  the  speculative  tendency  just  spoken  of; 
and  what  Mr.  Maurice  *  has  well  indicated  as  a  dis- 
tinct effort  to  construct  a  religious  system,  able  to 
hold  its  own  before  the  powers  of  the  world,  —  dis- 
tinct, that  is,  from  the  simple  motive  of  seeking  faith 
and  salvation  in  the  religion  itself.  The  moral  reac- 
tion it  is  fair  enough  to  call  the  antithesis  of  Gnos- 
ticism, and  the  constructive  tendency  its  counterpart. 

The  most  obvious  symptom  of  the  first  is,  of  course, 
the  defence  of  the  Christian  society  on  moral  grounds:! 
the  claim  of  purer  lives,  and  the  contrast  with  pagan 
vices  ;  the  vehement  denial  of  unclean  and  criminal 
acts  charged  against  Christian  assemblies  ;  the  inces- 
sant denunciations  of  paganism  on  the  ground  of  its 
corrupt  mythology. 

Each  head  of  the  defence  emphasizes  some  point 
of  appeal  to  conscience,  to  the  natural  sense  of  right 
and  wrong.  The  weak  side  of  the  old  society  —  its 
easy  indulgence  to  the  flesh  —  is  pitilessly  exposed  ; 
and  a  certain  austere  sanctity  of  domestic  morals,  a 
purity  in  the  relation  of  man  and  wife,  a  tenderness 
in  the  relation  of  parent  and  child,  quite  alien  from 
heathen  custom,  is  especially  dwelt  on.  The  com- 
mon virtues  of  life,  as  we  should  reckon  them  in  any 
orderly  and  decent  condition  of  things,  are  pressed 
in  a  way  that  shows  what  bitter  calumnies  were  in 

*  "Ecclesiastical  History  of  the  First  and  Second  Centuries." 
t  It  is  worth  noting,  that  none  of  the  writers  of  this  period  (1 
think)  except  Irenseus  claim  miraculous  powers  for  the  Church, 
though  some  assert  that  demons  were  busy  on  behalf  of  the  pa- 
gans. This  does  not,  however,  exclude  wonders  in  some  of  the 
martyrologies. 


ITS    EXCEEDING   GRAVITY   OF   TEMPER.  63 

vogue,  and  with  what  serious  pains  the  foundations 
were  getting  laid  for  those  grave  moralities  which 
have  been  the  real  heart  of  Christian  civilization 
since.  It  would  be  tedious  to  go  into  illustration 
of  this ;  but  I  think  no  one  can  read  the  Apology  of 
Justin,  the  Apostolic  Constitutions,  the  grave  homi- 
lies of  Clement,  or  even  the  loud  tirades  of  Tertullian, 
without  feeling  that  a  new  life  was  growing  up,  or- 
ganized, serious,  strong,  and  wholesome ;  a  life  which 
flowed  broadly  below  political  changes  on  one  side, 
and  theological  controversies  on  the  other ;  a  life 
which  was  getting  knit  and  braced,  by  vigilant  dis- 
cipline, against  the  time  when  it  must  abide  the  storm 
of  imperial  persecution,  or  undertake  the  enormous 
task  of  meeting  the  wild  and  brutal  forces  of  the  bar- 
barian world.  Either  crisis  would  have  been  fatal, 
unless  there  had  been,  at  bottom,  an  absolute  loyalty, 
most  assiduously  cherished,  in  the  great  war  of  Good 
and  Evil.  However  imperfect  its  interpretation,  or 
its  theory,  yet  the  life  of  the  Christian  society  was 
staked  on  its  unhesitating  faith  in  a  Power  that  makes 
for  righteousness.* 

*  It  is  hard  to  overstate  the  extreme  seriousness,  what  some 
would  call  puritanism,  of  the  writings  referred  to.  A  brief  chap- 
ter on  Smiling,  by  Clement  of  Alexandria  (who  allows  it  in  mod- 
eration), is,  I  think,  the  only  relief  to  the  rigor  of  the  attitude  in 
which  the  Christians  found  themselves,  in  the  battle  of  good  and 
evil  which  was  upon  them.  The  same  severe  temper  is  shown  in 
the  bitter  hostility  of  Tertullian  (when  a  Montanist)  against  the 
novel  doctrine  of  Hennas,  of  a  possible  repentance  and  pardon 
after  baptism.  (See  Mossman's  "Early  Church,"  pp.  315-320.) 
The  most  serious  controversy  of  the  Church,  early  in  the  third 
century,  was  that  sustained  by  Cyprian  against  the  puritan  ex- 
clusiveness  of  the  Novatians. 


64     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT    OF   THE    SECOND    CENTURY. 

It  is  important  to  recognize  this  feature  first  of  all, 
because  it  is  disguised  in  part  by  the  crudeness  of 
idea  and  the  very  simplicity  of  good  faith  with  which 
these  defences  are  put  forth.  It  is  hard,  for  instance, 
to  conceive  how  Justin  could  have  mistaken  a  large 
part  of  what  he  says  for  argument ;  or  how  Marcus 
Aurelius  could  have  kept  the  philosophic  patience  he 
was  so  famous  for,  through  Justin's  long,  irrelevant 
harangue  (as  it  must  certainly  have  seemed  to  him) 
about  the  Hebrew  prophecies. 

Again,  in  the  face  of  the  calm  rationalism  that  for 
centuries  had  screened  or  allegorized  the  old  Greek 
fables  for  all  thinking  men,  the  Apologists  must  needs, 
in  weary  iteration,  one  after  the  other,  repeat  the  dull 
recital  of  the  scandals  of  Olympus, — possibly,  to  some 
good  popular  effect,  —  without  hinting  at  anything 
less  offensive  than  the  baldest  literal  understanding 
of  them,  exactly  as  some  modern  free-thinkers  have 
treated  the  Old  Testament. 

The  frankness  and  vigor,  too,  with  which  the  no- 
blest doctrines  of  natural  theology  are  discarded, — 
such  as  the  immortality  of  the  soul,  which  is  thrust 
aside  to  make  way  for  the  dogma  of  a  miraculous  re- 
vival of  the  corpse,  argued  out  in  the  oddest  detail, 
and  (naturally)  with  the  grossest  ignorance  of  the 
facts  adduced  in  illustration,  —  serve  to  prejudice  a 
modern  mind  unfairly  against  the  main  argument 
itself.  I  need  hardly  add  the  vituperative  calumnies 
of  such  writers  as  Tatian,  in  his  clamor  against  Greek 
philosophy,  or  the  rhetoric  of  Tertullian,  deepening 
to  vindictive  exultation,  —  which  is,  after  all,  mere 
rhetoric,  —  as   he  contemplates  the   pits  of  eternal 


RELATIONS   WITH   THE   EMPIRE.  65 

flame,  into  which  the  enemies  of  the  Church  shall 
be  cast.  These  things  have  left  a  stain  upon  the 
memory  of  that  age,  quite  plain  enough  in  the  view 
of  the  average  historian  ;  and  therefore  it  is  right 
that  they  should  be  mentioned  here,  only  to  put  in 
clearer  relief  the  testimony  to  the  real  power  and 
sincerity  of  the  moral  life  they  disfigure. 

The  relations  of  the  Christian  community  to  the 
Eoman  world  at  this  period  offer  a  very  wide  topic, 
of  which  I  can  touch  only  a  single  point  or  two.  It 
is  a  familiar  question,  Why  did  the  Eoman  empire 
deal  so  much  more  harshly  with  the  Christian  re- 
ligion than  with  other  local  faiths,  which  it  received 
on  easy  terms  into  its  wide  pantheon  ?  And  it  is  a 
familiar  answer,  Because  the  Christian  religion  was 
in  its  nature  uncompromising,  and  at  bottom  carried 
with  it  the  destruction  of  Paganism  itself,  with  the 
imperial  system  closely  bound  up  with  it.  This  an- 
swer, too,  is  illustrated  by  the  refusal  of  the  Chris- 
tians to  pay  the  customary  official  homage  to  Caesar, 
which  they  held  blasphemy,  —  refusal  that  in  them 
was  held  constructive  treason ;  and,  still  further,  by 
the  fact  that  the  Church  was  from  the  first  a  form 
of  polity  as  well  as  a  system  of  belief,  and  held  the 
germ  of  a  new  organization  of  society  (iroXiTela), 
which  was  felt  to  be  gradually  crowding  out  the  old. 
All  this,  it  is  said,  must  have  been  clear  to  the  mind 
of  a  thoughtful  pagan,  like  Aurelius  ;  and  sufficiently 
accounts  for  the  fact  that  he,  the  most  scrupulously 
just  of  all  the  emperors  of  this  period  save  one,  and 
most  gravely  resolved  to  heal  the  evils  of  the  state, 
was  also  sternest  of  all  to  put  in  force  the  laws  against 
the  Christians.  E 


66     CHRISTIAN   THOUGHT   OF   THE    SECOND    CENTURY. 

To  this  statement,  however,  two  things  should  he 
added:  that  the  earlier  persecutions  seem  all  —  as  we 
see  in  the  case  of  Polycarp  —  to  have  been  a  conces- 
sion to  popular  clamor  and  the  temper  of  the  mob ; 
and  that  this  popular  hate  runs  a  great  way  back,  long 
before  the  least  public  danger  could  have  been  thought 
of,  from  an  obscure  and  petty  sect.  Thus  in  Paul's 
church  at  Ptome  were  some  of  Nero's  household ;  Corn- 
modus  was  capriciously  indulgent  to  the  Christians ; 
the  language  of  Trajan  and  Hadrian  is  at  worst  that 
of  impatient  contempt.*  I  have  spoken  elsewhere  of 
the  persecution  under  Nero,  —  a  mere  cowardly  turn- 
ing of  the  popular  rage  against  a  class  that  lay  too 
easily  open  to  suspicion.  Why  was  that  ?  and  why 
were  the  mob  so  ready  always  with  the  most  abom- 
inable charges  against  the  Christians,  —  "  (Edipodean 
marriages  and  Thyestean  feasts,"  as  Athenagoras  re- 
ports ? 

It  is,  of  course,  impossible  to  go  behind  the  reports 
to  investigate  the  charges.  There  have  been  students 
of  these  things,  who  have  believed  that  the  worst  of 
them  were  true,  —  that  the  sacred  "  mysteries  "  did 
include  the  tasting  of  blood  and  sensual  excess.f 
Possibly,  in  instances.  Cases  of  horror,  frightful  or 
disgusting,  have  not  been  unknown  in  religious  orgies 
in  modern  times ;  $   and  Christians  even  then  were 

*  The  terra  Trajan  addresses  to  Ignatius  is  KaKohai/xov,  which 
Mr.  Maurice  translates  "poor  devil." 

t  The  specific  forms  of  these  calumnies  may  be  found  in  Ter- 
tullian's  AtlNationes  and  Apologeticus.  For  illustration  of  the  style 
of  criticism  referred  to,  see  the  very  curious  volume  of  Daumer. 

X  Take  that  of  the  Convuhionnaircs,  for  example,  a  century  and 
a  half  ago,  which  sprang  from  a  sect  with  such  grave  antecedents 
as  the  Jansenists. 


CALUMNIES    AGAINST   THE    CHRISTIANS.  67 

not  slow  to  throw  off  the  charge  upon  heretical  assem- 
blies. Think  of  the  raw  material  that  entered  into 
their  composition,  —  in  Syria  and  North  Africa,  for 
example  ;  and  that  they  called,  avowedly,  "  not  right- 
eous, but  sinners,  to  repentance." 

But  consider,  too,  how  likely  the  religious  language 
of  Christians  was  to  invite,  or  at  least  give  color  to, 
those  charges.  If  the  Apocalypse,  for  example,  or 
any  of  its  imagery,  was  composed  and  current  in  the 
time  of  Nero,  what  more  likely  than  that  its  vague 
threats  of  a  sea  of  fire  to  engulf  the  guilty  kingdoms 
of  the  earth  should  have  been  caught  up  and  used  to 
accuse  the  Christians  of  that  vast  conflagration  in 
which  half  Eome  perished?  What  more  likely  —  at 
a  time  when  the  most  innocent  word  easily  took  a 
lewd  signification  * — than  that  the  Christian  language 
about  a  God  of  love,  and  of  greetings  with  a  holy  kiss, 
should  have  been  grossly  but  honestly  misunderstood  ? 
What  more  likely  than  that  the  frank  symbolism, 
favorite  and  familiar  to  Christian  lips,  —  "  Except  ye 
eat  the  flesh  of  the  Son  of  Man,  and  drink  his  blood, 
ye  have  no  life  in  you,"  —  should  have  been  quoted 
to  justify  the  most  horrid  accusation  of  cannibal  ban- 
quets at  the  table  and  the  cup  of  sacrifice  ?  We  know 
how  easily  such  stories  spread,  and  what  frenzy  of 
hate  they  will  engender. 

It  is  likely,  too,  as  implied  in  a  hint  of  Suetonius, 
—  nay,  from  what  happened  in  the  ferocious  revolt 
under  Hadrian  it  is  certain,  —  that  the  popular  mind 
made  no  distinction  between  Christian  and  Jew.  It 
was  not  so  much,  says  Tacitus,  the  charge  of  the  burn- 

*  Thus,  in  his  own  time,  Erasmus  says,  it  was  not  reckoned 
comely  to  use  the  verb  amo. 


68      CHRISTIAN    THOUGHT   OF   THE    SECOND    CENTURY. 

ing,  as  of  hatred  against  all  mankind,*  that  embittered 
the  persecution  under  Nero.  And  the  fresh  memory 
of  the  horrors  in  Cyprus  and  Palestine,  more  than  fifty 
years  later,  which  Justin  alludes  to  as  the  background 
of  his  dialogue  with  the  Jew  Trypho,  had  its  share  in 
keeping  up  the  frenzy  of  popular  hate  and  fear  which, 
more  than  any  imperial  policy,  was  the  real  ground  of 
the  terror  that  always  menaced  the  Christian  body : 
just  as  we  may  imagine  the  horrors  of  the  Paris  Com- 
mune, in  1871,  not  only  to  sharpen  the  vigilance  of 
the  German  police  against  socialistic  conspiracy  now, 
but  to  goad  the  enemies  of  socialism  with  the  haunt- 
ing, unforo-iyino-  hate  that  is  born  of  fear. 

There  is  one  other  illustration  of  the  Christian  life 
of  this  period,  of  which  a  word  must  be  said  in  con- 
clusion. I  have  spoken  of  the  temper  that  runs 
through  most  of  the  "Apologists,"  as  a  moral  reac- 
tion against  the  purely  speculative  views  of  Gnos- 
ticism. Of  course,  that  reaction  ran  out  into  crudi- 
ties and  excess.  The  hostility  of  Marcion  against  the 
Old  Testament ;  the  sect  of  "  Alogi,"  or  "  Wordless  " 
Christians,  who  would  hear  nothing  of  any  Logos  at 
all ;  the  harsh  asceticism  of  the  "  Encratites "  or 
"  wrestlers  "  against  Satan,  —  are  to  be  reckoned  as 
so  many  "heresies,"  more  or  less  allied  with  Gnos- 
ticism, yet  of  rather  an  ethical  than  speculative  cast. 
The  exaggerated,  untempered,  and  eccentric  moral 
phases  exhibited  hj  Tertullian,  Xeander  explains  by 
calling  him  an  "  anti-gnostic,"  —  making  this  the  ex- 
treme form  the  reaction  took,  and  so  accounting  for 
what  most  offends  in  him. 

*  Meri  vale's  interpretation  of  odio  humani  generis. 


MONTANISM.  69 

As  part  of  the  same  phenomenon,  too,  we  must 
reckon  the  blazing  out  of  the  spiritualistic  fervor  of 
Montanism  in  the  East,*  which  cut  adrift,  like  Qua- 
kerism or  Methodism,  from  the  formalities  and  the 
sober  traditions  of  the  Christian  body,  and  claimed 
to  be  a  new  dispensation,  under  the  immediate  guid- 
ance of  the  Holy  Ghost,  as  promised  in  the  last  dis- 
course of  Jesus,  —  a  sort  of  Gnosticism  reversed  (as 
Baur  explains  it),  finding  in  its  dogma  an  account, 
not  of  the  beginning,  but  the  end  of  all  things. 

That  peculiar  fanaticism  has  reappeared,  in  many 
forms,  from  age  to  age,  —  always,  it  is  probable,  as  a 
protest  against  some  exaggeration  of  formality  and  tra- 
dition ;  and  the  heat  of  it  has  always  been  absorbed, 
to  thaw  out  some  gathering  stiffness,  or  to  warm  some 
pale  intellectuality.  The  extravagant  pretensions  of 
Montanism  did  no  particular  harm.  But  they  occa- 
sioned some  scandal,  and  even  alarm,  at  a  time  when 
the  Church  was  not  used  to  dealing  with  such  dis- 
ordered symptoms.  Its  language  w7as  blasphemous, 
perhaps,  to  the  sober  ear.  It  made  more  apparent 
the  value  and  the  need  of  the  restraints  it  despised ; 
and  so  had  its  share,  doubtless,  in  strengthening  the 
hands  of  authority,  to  the  confirming  of  creed  and 
ritual. 

This,  then,  is  the  condition  to  which  we  are  brought 
at  the  end  of  the  second  Christian  century.  One 
great  phase  of  purely  speculative  development  has 
been  left  behind.  The  growing  life  of  Christendom 
has  been  asserted,  again  and  again,  to  have  its  roots 

*  Of  which  Mossman's  "  Early  Christianity  "  gives  a  very  ap- 
preciative account. 


70     CHRISTIAN  THOUGHT   OF  THE   SECOND   CENTURY. 

in  morality,  and  for  its  law  the  law  of  personal  holi- 
ness,— however  technically,  ascetically,  or  imperfectly 
understood.  There  is  already  a  lengthening  calendar 
of  saints,  martyrs,  and  heroes,  making  a  sacred  and 
powerful  bond  of  union.  There  is  a  fast-growing 
consciousness  that  Christianity  is  to  be  shaped  and 
developed  into  a  community,  understanding  itself, 
organic,  with  its  own  authoritative  belief  and  law. 
The  pressure  of  imperial  power  and  of  popular  sus- 
picion still  holds  it  in  check  from  spreading  too 
vaguely,  and  melting  away  in  fatal  forms  of  com- 
promise. And,  for  the  expression  of  that  life,  we 
have  already  the  group  of  writers  and  teachers  I 
have  named,  whose  lives  are  closing  with  the  cen- 
tury,—  Irenseus,  Clement,  and  Tertullian,  to  be  im- 
mediately followed  by  the  equal  or  greater  names  of 
Cyprian  and  of  Origen. 

In  particular,  the  century  from  150  to  250  was 
decisive  in  the  growth  of  Sacerdotalism.  At  the 
former  date,  or  a  little  later,  Peter  came  to  Rome,  in 
the  form  of  the  Clementine  legend,  to  check  the  rival 
schools  of  Valentinus  and  Marcion,  —  pure  specula- 
tion and  pure  individualism,  which  threatened  to  di- 
vide the  Christian  body  between  them,  —  and  brought 
back  the  old  church  life  from  Palestine .*  At  the 
latter  date,  Novatian,  most  orthodox  of  early  theo- 
logians, was  worsted  in  his  controversy  with  Cyprian 
on  the  question  of  the  Lapsed  ;  and  the  Church  knew 
that  her  work  was  the  salvation  of  society,  not  merely 
the  rescue  of  the  individual  soul,  which  was  the  real 
point  at  issue. 

*  See  Gieseler,  chap.  v.  ;  "Hebrew  Men  and  Times,"  p.  411. 


IV. 

THE  MIND  OF  PAGANISM. 

TN"  our  study  of  early  Christianity,  it  is  easiest  and 
-*■  most  common  to  think  of  Paganism  simply  as 
its  antagonist,  or  opposite ;  and  to  regard  the  process 
going  on  as  one  purely  of  conquest  or  conversion. 
It  is  so  in  the  main.  There  was  a  new  spirit  at  war 
with  the  old  institutions  and  beliefs.  The  eye  catches 
first  and  most  readily  the  dramatic  contrast,  watches 
with  keenest  interest  the  fortunes  of  the  battle.  The 
radical  difference  is  what  we  have  seen  something  of 
already,  in  the  Christian  thought  of  the  second  cen- 
tury, and  shall  see  more  of  in  the  sharper  collisions 
yet  to  come. 

But  this  is  not  the  only  view.  It  is  not  even, 
strictly  speaking,  the  truest  view.  Leaven  works  in 
the  lump,  not  by  destruction,  but  by  co-operation. 
Christianity  was  at  work  "  like  leaven,"  —  like  a  new 
element  of  great  power  suddenly  set  free,  not  to  the 
extinction  or  exclusion  of  those  that  were  there  be- 
fore, but  to  the  making  of  new  compounds,  in  which 
all  their  former  potency  abides  under  other  names. 
Nitrogen  and  hydrogen  are  not  nearly  so  unlike  in 
their  own  apparent  properties,  as  in  the  combinations 
they  make  with  the  oxygen  that  attacks  them  both. 
To  understand  the  Christian  movement  justly,  how- 


72  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

ever  imperfectly,  we  must  know  something  of  the 
material  it  wrought  upon.  And  of  this,  not  merely 
its  falsehood,  unbelief,  or  moral  decay ;  but  the  posi- 
tive side  as  well,  —  the  serious  thought,  the  vigorous 
life,  the  genuine  piety,  that  still  had  their  place  in 
the  mind  of  Paganism. 

For  it  is  to  be  seen,  not  only  that  the  old  Pagan 
faiths  had  not  died  out  at  the  coming  of  Christianity, 
as  we  are  apt  to  think  ;  but  that  what  was  best  and 
truest  in  them  had  taken  a  new  start,  as  it  were,  and 
a  genuine  pagan  revival  was  to  some  extent  keeping 
pace  with  the  stronger  religious  growth  that  at  length 
absorbed,  or  else  suppressed  it.  For  a  time,  however, 
not  only  the  two  movements  are  not  antagonistic  to 
each  other ;  they  are,  in  a  sense,  independent  efforts 
after  a  similar  ideal.  The  rapid  and  powerful  process 
of  organization  in  Christianity  itself  would  not  have 
been  possible,  unless  a  part  of  its  work  had  been  al- 
ready done  by  its  antagonist.  The  Providence  itself 
that  wrought  in  it  would  not  have  been  so  clear, 
without  that  spiritual  and  moral  preparation  which 
was  going  on  in  the  pagan  world. 

It  has  been  common  enough  to  recognize  two  forms 
of  this  preparation.  One  is  in  the  way  of  religious 
craving  after  some  good  yet  unattained.  "We  know," 
says  Paul,  "that  the  whole  creation  groaneth  and 
travaileth  in  pain  together  until  now,  waiting  to  be 
delivered."  Of  this  I  shall  say  a  word  presently. 
The  other  is  in  the  way  of  philosophic  speculation, 
which  failed  to  interpret  these  longings  for  a  higher 
life,  but  did  much  to  shape  the  mould  in  which  the 
victorious  dogma  was  long  after  cast.     Besides  these 


CICERO.  73 

is  a  third  phase,  which  makes  the  object  of  our  study 
now. 

Attention  has  been  called  *  to  the  great  contrast  in 
temper  and  spirit  between  the  time  of  the  fall  of  the 
Roman  Republic  and  that  of  the  culmination  of  the 
Empire  two  centuries  later,  between  the  time  of  Cicero 
and  that  of  Marcus  Aurelius.  In  the  earlier  time  we 
have  complete  scepticism  and  negation.  The  foun- 
tain of  old  belief  seems  to  have  quite  run  dry.  As 
to  the  forms  of  pagan  ritual,  once  so  venerable,  Cicero 
does  not  see  how  its  diviners  can  look  one  another 
soberly  in  the  face.  In  his  writings  —  by  far  the 
broadest  and  completest  reflection  we  have  of  the 
mind  of  any  ancient  period  —  we  find  three  phases, 
or  moods,  so  utterly  distinct  as  to  seem  out  of  keep- 
ing with  any  one  era,  not  to  say  any  one  honest 
mind.  In  his  Speeches,  he  is  the  eloquent  conserva- 
tive, appealing  profusely  for  popular  effect  to  the  im- 
mortal gods,  whose  providence  is  too  plain  for  cavil  in 
any  crisis  of  the  state,  whose  judgments  are  sure  and 
terrible  to  all  who  defy  their  law.  In  his  Dialogues, 
the  very  existence  of  these  gods  is  an  open  question, 
calmly  debated  in  friendly  philosophical  discourse ; 
while  the  ideal  life  of  pious  contemplation,  the  confi- 
dent hope  of  immortal  peace  and  communion  of  con- 
scious spirits  beyond  the  grave,  appear  to  make  the 
sure  foundation  and  deep  background  of  his  thought. 
In  his  .Letters,  both  these  phases  disappear:  the 
friendly  courtesy,  the  party  passion,  the  personal  mor- 
tification or  resentment,  love  or  hate,  are  purely  on  a 

*  Boissier,  La  Religion  Romaine,  from  which  several  of  the  fol- 
lowing illustrations  are  taken. 
4 


74  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

secular  level ;  even  the  confidences  of  intimate  friend- 
ship, or  the  sharpest  sorrows  of  private  life,  give  no 
one  hint  of  anything  so  distant  and  unreal  as  a  reli- 
gious interpretation  to  its  riddle,  or  a  ray  of  that  com- 
fort of  which  he  is  so  eloquent  when  he  robes  himself 
as  a  philosopher.  For  any  personal  conviction,  any 
guidance  of  conduct,  any  stay  of  character,  religion 
—  if  it  means  anything  more  than  Roman  justice  or 
Roman  pride  —  is  an  absolute  blank.  And,  beside 
the  best  of  his  contemporaries,  Cicero  is  a  man  of  even 
exemplary  piety. 

JSTow  immediately  after  the  age  of  Cicero,  in  the 
first  years  of  the  new  Empire,  there  are  symptoms  of 
a  profound  change.  Not  only  the  head  of  the  state 
professes  himself  the  patron  of  piety  and  morals,  and 
chooses  a  religious  title,  "Augustus,"  by  which  he  is 
to  be  most  familiarly  known  to  the  minds  of  men : 
speaking  the  most  serious  thought  of  his  time,  Virgil 
dwells  on  the  golden  age  which  a  divine  providence 
is  just  opening  to  mankind,  in  images  and  phrases 
which  many  have  thought  borrowed  directly  from  He- 
brew prophets  ;  so  that  his  name  and  verse  became 
the  charm  that  won  for  the  mind  of  Paganism  a  place 
in  the  widening  domain  of  Christian  culture.  And  as 
the  Empire,  in  spite  of  calamity  and  crime,  grew  more 
broad,  magnificent,  and  strong,  the  same  feeling  deep- 
ened into  a  religion  of  the  Empire,  all  the  more  formi- 
dable to  the  Christian  faith  because  it  was  genuine 
and  sincere ;  not  merely,  as  we  are  too  apt  to  think, 
because  it  was  cruel,  degenerate,  and  corrupt. 

This  New  Paganism,  as  we  may  call  it,  went  along 
with  an  increasing  moral  earnestness  and  religious 


THE   STOICS.  75 

fervor.  The  moral  feeling  might  be  capricious,  blind, 
and  intolerant ;  the  religious  fervor  might  run  into 
the  wildest  superstition.  There  was  never  a  faith 
yet  that  was  not  disgraced  by  its  most  zealous  ad- 
herents. But  the  contrast  is  hardly  greater  between 
the  implacable  passions  of  the  civil  war  and  Virgil's 
pious  hopes  of  peace,  than  that  between  the  blank 
incredulity  of  Julius  Caesar  and  his  age  and  the  se- 
rene kindliness  of  Antoninus  Pius,  or  the  religious 
Meditations  of  Marcus  Aurelius,  —  the  noblest  of 
Stoics  on  the  most  aiumst  of  thrones. 

o 

The  Stoic  doctrine  was  the  intellectual  interpreta- 
tion of  the  new  pagan  faith.  In  its  speculations  on 
the  origin  of  things,  still  more  in  its  ethical  ideal,  it 
is  curiously  near  to  some  of  the  noblest  phases  of 
Christian  theology  and  morals.  It  is  not  likely, 
though  many  argue  still,  that  Seneca  learned  that 
doctrine  from  the  Apostle  Paul ;  but  no  one  can 
read  the  writings  of  both  without  feeling  how  much 
is  of  a  common  spirit,  if  not  from  a  common  source. 
And  what  in  Seneca  is  mere  ethical  glow  has  within 
a  century  become,  in  Antoninus  and  Aurelius,  the 
fervor  of  a  genuine  religious  life.  The  "  reign  of 
the  Stoics,"  represented  by  such  names  as  these,  does 
infinitely  more  honor  to  the  faith  that  inspired  it 
than  anything  we  find  in  the  first  half-century,  at 
least,  of  the  Christian  Emperors.  We  may  even  have 
to  come  down  as  far  as  St.  Louis  of  France  to  find 
their  parallel. 

How  far,  on  the  other  hand,  may  the  Christian 
theology  and  morals  have  been  indebted  to  the  doc- 
trine of  the  Stoics  ?     A  few  words  will  serve  to  show 


76  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

their  points  of  likeness,  and  their  fundamental  dif- 
ference.* 

The  Stoic  cosmogony  shows  itself  as  a  compromise 
between  the  conception  of  a  pre-existent  personal  Cre- 
ator, outside  the  universe  which  he  brings  into  being, 
—  the  idea  of  earlier  philosophers  and  of  the  world 
at  large,  —  and  the  notion  of  Matter  blindly  guided  by 
Force,  the  doctrine  of  Democritus  and  Epicurus.  To 
the  Stoic  the  universe  was  not  made  hy  God  ;  it  was 
God,  and  endowed  with  all  the  attributes  necessary 
to  his  conception  of  a  Divinity,  including  power,  in- 
telligence, wisdom,  and  justice.  This  Divinity  had 
from  eternity  a  fixed  and  unchanging  purpose,  which 
was  the  Pronoia,  or  Providentia,  —  the  everlasting 
Reason  appearing  in  the  succession  of  events.  Such 
a  Divinity  differs  from  the  Christian  ideal  chiefly 
in  the  absence  of  personal  love  and  care  for  his  off- 
spring ;  and  even  as  to  this,  the  Pronoia  is  almost  an 
affectionate  interest  in  Man,  —  not  men.  The  fact 
that  this  Being  is  identified  with  the  universe  is  of 
no  account.  It  would  be  more  true  to  say,  that  the 
universe  is  identified  with  the  Divinity.  The  world 
is  seen  as  the  successive  emanations  and  withdrawals 
of  the  Divine  Reason,  the  eternal  Logos.  It  is  the 
systole  and  diastole  of  the  Divine  nature,  alternately 
developing,  through  the  series  of  the  four  elements, 
from  fire  —  conceived  as  the  primitive  and  natural 
form  of  intelligent  matter  —  into  the  other  three,  in 
the  order  of  their  density,  and  back  again  to  the  form 
of  fire.  Thus  the  fundamental  conception  is  not  cre- 
ation, but  evolution  or  emanation. 

*  Compare  "Hebrew  Men  and  Times,"  pp.  352-357.    For  some  of 
the  following  illustrations  I  am  indebted  to  Prof.  J.  B.  Greenough. 


THE    STOIC    ETHICS.  77 

Of  this  animate  universe,  with  its  periodicity  of 
creation  (if  we  may  call  it  so)  and  extinction,  every- 
thing, even  the  soul  of  the  Stoic  sage,  forms  a  part. 
Virtue  is  the  perfect  adjustment  of  all  the  desires 
and  acts  of  the  soul  —  in  Christian  phraseology,  the 
submission  of  the  will  —  to  the  universal  and  per- 
sistent Logos,  the  divine  reason  and  providence.  Vir- 
tue is  thus,  necessarily,  one  and  indivisible.  This 
ethical  view  is  essentially  the  same  with  that  of  the 
more  rigid  Christian  sects.  "  Whosoever  shall  offend 
in  one  point,  he  is  guilty  of  all."  All  wrong-doing 
and  all  right-doing  must  be  alike  in  value.  On  this 
side  the  razor's  edge,  it  is  all  good ;  on  that  side,  all 
evil.  Growth  in  goodness,  properly  speaking,  there 
can  be  none. 

All  the  Stoic  paradoxes  are  the  logical  following 
out  of  this  view.  A  man  either  is,  or  he  is  not,  in 
harmony  with  the  divine  order  of  the  universe.  If 
he  is,  he  is  "  the  wise  man  "  (sapiens) ;  if  not,  he  is 
"the  fool"  (stultus).  These  two  are  all.  A  man  can- 
not be  approaching  wisdom.  He  is  no  nearer  to  it 
with  a  thousand  excellences  (virtutes)  than  with  one, 
—  like  the  string  of  a  piano,  which  makes  a  discord 
till  it  is  perfectly  in  tune.  The  "  wise  man  "  is  the 
perfect  human  being ;  *  that  is,  perfectly  adjusted  to 
the  rest  of  the  universe  of  which  he  forms  a  part. 
The  one  problem  of  life  is  to  make  the  Divine  Eeason 
paramount  and  supreme  in  the  sphere  of  one's  own 
conduct.  "  He  has  a  truly  great  mind,"  say  the 
Stoics,  "  who  surrenders  himself  wholly  to  God."    His 

*  "Operis  sic  optimus  omnis  est  opifex,  solus  sic  rex,  solus 
formosus." 


78  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

assurance  of  the  right  is  his  only  and  sufficient  re- 
ward. To  him  can  be  no  evil,  and  no  pain  :  all  is 
reconciled  in  the  universal  Order.  He  alone  is  free, 
or  rich,  or  of  a  sound  mind ;  he,  in  truth,  is  the  only 
sovereign. 

Of  this  serious  and  enlightened  pagan  gospel  a  sin- 
gle point  may  he  remarked.  To  say  nothing  of  the 
wealth  of  doctrine  gathered  about  the  Messianic  idea 
and  the  person  of  Jesus,  Stoicism  lacked  the  one  thing 
which  made  the  Christian  gospel  a  power  in  the 
religious  life  of  mankind.  This  was  what  we  may 
call  Paul's  method  of  salvation,  of  which  the  cardinal 
points  are  conviction  of  sin  and  salvation  by  faith. 
This  method  is  as  true,  psychologically,  as  it  was  then 
and  is  now  essential  to  any  genuine  vigor  of  religious 
life  in  the  soul.  If  we  allow  ourselves  to  think  of 
Christianity  as  the  development  of  a  system  of  doc- 
trine, we  shall  exactly  miss  its  secret,  —  the  one  thing 
that  makes  its  triumph  intelligible  or  its  history 
worth  our  study.  Christianity  as  a  scheme  of  doc- 
trine may  be  doubtfully  balanced  against  one  or  two 
pagan  schemes,  Stoic  or  Neo-Platonic,  from  both  of 
which  it  borrowed  very  largely.  But,  as  a  method  of 
the  divine  life,  it  had  a  power  from  another  source,  for 
lack  of  which  Stoicism  miserably  failed. 

We  have  before  us,  then,  two  features  of  the  later 
Paganism,  which  we  may  call  the  religion  of  the  peo- 
ple and  the  religion  of  the  philosophers.  To  these  we 
may  add  a  third  influence,  working  powerfully  in  the 
same  general  direction,  and  shown  in  the  reform  of 
the  Eoman  Law.  The  period  we  are  considering  is 
called  by  Gibbon  "the  learned  and  splendid  era  of 


TESTIMONY   OF  TERTULLIAN.  79 

jurisprudence."  It  culminated,  a  little  later,  in  the 
great  jurists  of  the  third  century  ;  but  the  expanding, 
softening,  humanizing  process,  carried  out  in  the  suc- 
cessive Christian  codes,  was  distinctly  the  fruit  of 
the  early  imperial  age.  The  crude,  stiff  formalism  of 
the  older  code,*  with  its  effete  system  of  domestic 
tyranny,!  was  shaped  and  tempered  by  larger  max- 
ims of  equity,  and  by  the  humaner  spirit  that  grew 
up  as  national  boundaries  melted  into  the  large  sys- 
tem of  the  Eoman  world. 

These  three  —  piety  among  the  people,  Stoicism 
with  the  philosophers,  law  reform  among  the  jurists  — 
we  must  set  over  against  the  decay  of  faith,  the  moral 
corruption,  and  the  political  languor  which  are  the 
symptoms  most  commonly  taken  note  of  in  the  pagan 
empire.  They  are  not  the  whole  of  the  picture.  They 
are  not,  by  any  means,  its  more  salient  points.  But, 
hidden  as  they  often  are  in  the  background,  they  serve 
not  only  for  relief  to  darker  impressions;  they  are 
quite  necessary  to  be  taken  into  account,  to  explain 
the  remarkable  phenomenon  of  the  extension  of  Chris- 
tianity at  the  end  of  the  second  century.  "  We  are  a 
people  of  yesterday,"  says  Tertullian,  in  his  tempest- 
uous challenge  to  the  pagan  world;  "yet  we  have 
filled  every  place  among  you,  —  cities,  islands,  forts, 
towns,  assemblies  ;  your  very  camps,  your  tribes,  com- 
panies, palace,  senate,  forum.  We  leave  you  nothing 
but  your  temples." 

These  words,  we  must  remember,  were  written  hot 

*  See  illustrations  in  Gibbon,  and  in  Maine's  "  Ancient  Law." 
t  The  patria  potestas.      See  Troplong,   De.  C  Influence  du   Chris- 
Homme  sur  le  Droit  Civile  des  Romains,  p.  62. 


80  THE   MIND   OF  PAGANISM. 

from  witnessing  the  martyrdoms  of  Carthage,  not  long 
before  the  persecutions  of  Decius,  which  made  the 
signal  of  a  war  of  extermination  against  the  Christian 
Church.  To  a  cooler  eye,  that  war  must  have  seemed 
likely  to  succeed.  The  persecution  of  Christianity  by 
the  Roman  emperors,  it  is  true,  was  capricious  and 
occasional ;  and  it  occurred  at  lono-  enough  intervals 
—  averaging  some  twenty  years  —  to  allow  amply  for 
the  peaceable  spread  of  the  new  religion.  Christianity 
not  as  a  moral  force,  or  even  as  a  system  of  dogma, 
but  only  as  a  quasi-political  structure  dangerous  to 
the  state,  was  the  thing  attacked.  Moreover  —  to 
judge  from  the  edicts  of  Diocletian  —  quiet  suppres- 
sion was  the  thing  aimed  at :  the  atrocious  cruelties 
recorded  by  Eusebius  were  wilful  acts  of  local  gover- 
nors, and  the  very  execution  of  the  edicts  might  be 
systematically  evaded  (as  by  Constantius  Chlorus) 
without  any  rebuke  from  the  central  power.  We 
find  nothing  in  these  centuries  to  compare  with  the 
virulence  and  ferocity  with  which  the  Reformers  in 
France  and  the  Netherlands  were  hunted  down  ;  still 
less,  to  compare  with  the  diabolical  craft  and  efficiency 
of  the  Spanish  Inquisition.  Pagan  Rome  showed 
never  such  wary  and  patient  cruelty  as  Papal  Rome. 
There  was,  however,  one  moment  when  its  whole 
weight  bore  on  the  rising  faith  to  crush  it.  If  Chris- 
tianity triumphed  in  the  end,  it  was  by  virtue  of  a 
very  wide  sympathy  and  a  very  extensive  preparation 
in  the  mind  of  Paganism.  And  the  moral  ground 
on  which  this  rested  was  the  same  that  had  already 
put  forth  that  independent  growth  of  conscience  and 
piety,  just  spoken  of  as  the  latest  and  best  fruit  of 
the  ancient  creed. 


THE   OLD   ITALIAN  WORSHIP.  81 

If  we  look  more  carefully  at  the  case  before  us,  we 

see  that  this  later  Paganism,  the  popular  religion  of 
the  Empire,  grew  up  along  with  the  great  political 
change  which  suddenly  turned  a  grinding  municipal 
tyranny  into  a  broad  imperial  system  embracing 
many  states.  Christian  writers  have  always  pointed 
to  that  system  as  the  manifest  opening  of  the  way  by 
Divine  Providence  to  the  march  of  the  true  religion. 
We  shall  see,  for  example,  how  distinctly  this  thought 
lies  in  the  appeals  to  faith  of  Leo  the  Great. 

It  is  just  as  true  of  the  religious  and  moral  con- 
ditions as  it  is  of  the  political  conditions.  The  old 
nature  worship,  formulated  in  the  popular  Italian 
creed,  and  embodied  in  the  state  religion  of  republican 
Borne,  was  as  formal  and  rigid  as  the  aristocratic  code 
of  the  old  law ;  inconceivably  precise,  minute,  timid, 
and  often  cruel.  Ovid*  relates  the  curious  myth  — 
a  grotesque  parallel  to  the  intended  sacrifice  of  Isaac 
and  the  substitution  of  a  ram  —  in  which  the  good 
ISTuma  palters  with  his  deity,  and  evades  the  shocking 
demand  of  human  sacrifice,  outwitting  the  divinity 
in  a  play  of  words.  "  I  demand,"  says  Jupiter,  "  the 
head"  —  "of  a  leek,"  says  the  pious  king;  "of  a 
live  "  —  "  fish,"  interposes  Numa  ;  "  man,"  insists  the 
god  ;  "  one  hair  I  give  you."  Jupiter  laughs,  and 
Numa's  point  is  gained. 

Livy  has  many  a  story  of  the  same  grim  half- 
humorous  formalism.  Thus,  to  foil  a  prophecy  that 
the  Gauls  should  occupy  the  soil  of  Eome,  two  cap- 
tive Gauls,  a  man  and  a  woman,  are  buried  alive 
within  the  city  limits.     Some  soldiers  in  revolt  think 

*  Fasti,  iii.  339-344. 
4*  f 


82  THE  MIND   OF  PAGANISM. 

to  free  their  conscience  from  their  military  oath 
by  killing  the  consuls,  to  whom  they  have  sworn 
it.  Papirius,  on  the  eve  of  battle,  is  deceived  by  a 
false  official  report  of  a  favorable  omen  :  the  sacred 
chickens  have  eaten  heartily.  Being  told,  later,  that 
the  report  was  false,  "  The  peril,"  said  he,  "  is  with 
the  officer  who  sent  it ;  him  the  gods  will  doubtless 
punish  justly ;  as  for  myself,  I  am  bound  by  the  re- 
port sent  me  in  due  form."  Accordingly,  he  is  victo- 
rious in  the  battle,  while  the  lying  officer  is  killed. 

Political  sagacity  or  military  sense,  again,  kept  the 
old  formalism  in  check,  so  that  it  was  rarely  suffered 
to  stand  in  the  way  of  policy.  Its  verbal  juggles  were 
oftener  used  to  patch  up  some  atrocious  state-craft  or 
treachery,  like  that  by  which  the  Eoman  armies 
escaped  from  the  Caudine  Forks,  where  the  general 
held  as  hostage,  assuming  to  be  a  Samnite  citizen, 
insults  the  Eoman  envoy,  and  so  brings  on  a  new 
cause  of  war ;  or  else  gave  way  to  a  rude  rationalism, 
as  when  a  commander  of  the  fleet  orders  the  sacred 
chickens  that  will  not  eat  to  be  pitched  overboard, 
where  at  any  rate  they  must  drink.  But  the  senti- 
ment of  it  lay  very  deep  in  the  popular  heart.  It  is 
a  remarkable  illustration  of  Bom  an  feeling  that,  on 
the  day  of  his  triumph,  Julius  Caesar,  the  Epicurean 
rationalist  and  the  merciless  destroyer,  mounted  on 
his  knees  the  long  flight  of  stairs  that  led  up  to  the 
Capitol,  that  by  this  act  of  ostentatious  humility  he 
might  avert  those  divine  judgments  supposed  to  be 
provoked  by  inordinate  felicity. 

It  is  not  easy  to  see  just  how  the  Italians  regarded 
their  popular  divinities.     Their  worship  (if  we  may 


GODS   OF   THE   NURSERY.  83 

call  it  so)  seems  often  frank  fetichism  of  the  rudest 
sort.  Their  very  names,  as  Augustine  recounts  them  * 
seem  as  consciously  make-believe  as  those  in  a  fairy 
story.  Thus,  as  we  should  say,  the  babe  is  brought 
to  birth  by  the  good  fairy  Light  (Lutina) ;  a  second 
(Levana)  receives  it  in  her  arms  ;  ministering  sprites 
(Cuba,  Mumina,  Cunina)  take  charge  of  the  offices  of 
sleeping,  nursing,  and  laying  the  infant  in  the  cradle  ; 
in  due  course  he  is  given  in  charge  of  the  attendant 
fairies  Walky,  Talky,  Eaty,  Drinky,  Outgo,  Home- 
come,  and  so  on  to  others,  whose  names  are  about 
equally  ingenious  and  recondite,  down  to  the  sad 
genius  Waily  (Ncenia),  lamenting  at  the  burial,  f 

In  all  this,  which  the  excellent  Christian  saint 
stigmatizes  as  idolatry  and  superstition,  —  to  say 
nothing  of  deities  that  to  him  are  simply  unclean 
devils,  —  we  should  probably  see  nothing  more  than 
the  same  childish,  half-reverent  fancy,  which  crowds 
the  infant  lore  of  our  day  with  similar  innocent  im- 
personations. Human  life  is  beset,  and  the  natural 
world  is  crowded,  with  very  real  powers,  utterly 
mysterious  to  us  ;  and  what  we  call  the  old  nature- 
religions  include,  along  with  many  a  dismal  super- 
stition, some  tender,  trustful,  crrateful  recognition  of 
a  living  Force,  to  which  mere  natural  science  is  apt 
to  blind  us.  What  made  these  simple  fancies  hateful 
and  abhorrent  to  the  Christian  mind  was  that  they 
were  part  of  the  habit  and  the  system  wrought  up 

*  De  Civitate  Dei,  vi.  9. 

t  Among  these  names  are  Educa,  Potina,  Cuba,  Abeona,  Adeona, 
Iterduca,  Domiduca,  and  many  others,  for  which  see  Keller,  x.  3 
(Dietz's  Paris  ed.). 


84  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

into  the  tremendous  despotism  of  Eome.  The  pagan- 
ism which  included  them  had  also  its  horrible  and 
revolting  side,  full  of  violence,  cruelty,  and  corrup- 
tion ;  and  so  thev  had  to  take  their  flight,  alone  with 
the  nymphs  of  mountain,  wood,  and  wave,  before  the 
wrath  and  hate  of  an  austerer  faith. 

The  great  gods  of  Italian  worship  were  no  doubt 
simply  the  powers  of  nature  personified.  Saturn  is 
the  seed-time,  Jupiter  the  sky,  Juno  the  air,  Janus 
(Dianus)  the  sun-god,  with  his  feminine  partner  Di- 
ana, the  moon ;  Mars  is  the  mighty,  Venus  is  spring- 
tide (later,  beauty  or  love),  and  so  on.  Our  asso- 
ciations with  these  names  come  mostly  from  the 
Greek  fables,  which  Latin  poets  and  mythologists 
imported  ready  made.  To  the  popular  mind,  most 
likely,  they  were  abstractions  nearly  as  vague  and 
dim  as  our  Electricity,  Gravitation,  and  the  like, — 
except  that  they  were  objects  of  more  real  awe,  and 
were  regarded  with  the  same  curious  formalism  we 
have  noted  before.  As  has  been  said,  they  were  di- 
vine Functions  (numina),  rather  than  divine  Persons. 
As  soon  as  the  functions  are  dimly  seen,  or  absorbed 
by  a  growing  positivism,  the  divinity  becomes  a  scare- 
crow or  laughing-stock  :  thus  we  see  how  Plautus 
makes  fun  of  the  mythological  sanctities. 

This  list  is  filled  out  with  names  that  to  us  are  ab- 
solutely no  more  than  abstract  qualities,  —  Honor, 
Manhood,  Terror,  Fortune,  Public  Safety,  —  which 
seem  quite  as  real  as  the  rest.  But  the  deity,  the 
function,  or  the  quality,  is  strictly  localized.  Each 
town  has  its  own  divinity,  potent  there,  void  and  im- 
potent elsewhere.     For  instance,  a  vow  having  been 


ROMAN    FORMALISM.  85 

made  to  "Knights'  Fortune,"  it  must  be  paid  in 
another  city,  because  no  such  divinity  is  known  in 
Eome.  If  a  town  is  to  be  attacked,  its  gods  are  en- 
treated, with  a  profusion  of  compliment  and  promise, 
to  forsake  that  place  and  take  their  abode  in  Rome  : 
a  long  formula  is  preserved,*  which  contains  the  right 
phrases  and  etiquette  of  this  "  evocation."  This  com- 
pliment performed,  the  Roman  conscience  is  free ;  the 
holy  places  are  "  made  profane  " ;  the  attack,  which 
would  have  been  sacrilege  before,  becomes  a  pious 
act;  if  the  deity  refuses,  the  peril  is  his  own.f  Thus 
Juno  is  solemnly  evoked  from  Veii,  and  for  the  first 
time  becomes  a  great  goddess  of  the  Romans!  And 
from  its  first  tutelar  divinity,  Mars,  the  victorious 
state  incorporates  in  its  worship,  one  by  one,  the 
deities  of  all  conquered  towns  and  nations,  till  its 
pantheon  includes  all  the  gods  and  all  the  worships 
of  the  pagan  world. 

Such  a  mythology  as  this  is  far  enough  from  the 
vivid  and  riotous  fancy  of  the  Greek.  It  is,  in  es- 
sence, bald,  hard,  bleak,  domineering.  It  lay  in  the 
region  of  ritual  and  form.  Its  rites  must  be  per- 
formed strictly  in  accordance  with  rule  and  tradi- 
tion ;  and  the  way  of  performing  them  duly  was  the 
secret  tradition  of  a  sacred  order.  Originally,  the 
father  of  the  family  was  priest  as  well  as  autocrat  in 

*  In  Macrobius,  Saturn.,  hi.  9. 

t  Hence  the  importance  of  using  the  exact  title  which  a  divinity 
will  acknowledge.  There  is  a  charm  in  "  Open  Sesame  "  in  the 
tale  which  cannot  be  shared  by  any  other  grain.  The  true  name 
of  Rome,  and  that  of  its  tutelar  divinity,  are  said  to  have  been 
kept  as  a  mystery,  lest  they  should  become  known  to  an  enemy, 
who  might  thus  disarm  the  city  of  its  defence. 


86  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

his  own  household,  and  the  ritual  was  closely  bound 
up  with  family  dignities  and  aristocratic  tradition. 

Such  formal  devotion  has  little  in  it  of  what  we 
call  religion  :  nothing  of  pious  contemplation,  little 
if  any  fervor  of  devout  emotion.  Indeed,  warmth  of 
religious  sentiment,  the  emotional  side  of  piety,  it 
distinctly  repudiates  and  dreads ;  as  we  may  imagine 
a  stiff  ritualist  of  the  last  century  to  abhor  the  early 
fervors  of  Methodism.  Such  passions  only  interfere 
with  its  fixed  and  rigid  temper.  They  are  merely 
a  detestable,  most  likely  an  outlandish  superstition, 
alien  and  hateful  to  the  mind  of  a  true-born  Roman. 

And,  again,  it  became  the  centre  of  a  very  wide  and 
powerful  organization  of  religious  motives  and  ideas. 
Rome  won  to  itself,  in  ages  of  conquest,  a  monopoly 
of  religions,  as  well  as  a  monopoly  of  political  powers 
and  rights.  The  central,  the  real  object  of  Roman 
worship  we  may  hold  to  have  been  Rome  herself,  — 
as  England  was  said  to  be  the  only  religion  of  Lord 
Palmerston.  We  may  well  believe  it.  The  ancient 
city  was  closely  identified  with  the  altar,  the  hearth - 
fire,  the  sacred  Name,  which  marked  its  peculiar  wor- 
ship.* Nothing  less  than  that  vast  impersonal  but 
very  real  abstraction,  the  City  itself,  could  be  the 
object  of  that  vivid,  intense,  self-devoted,  and  narrow 
loyalty  which  goes  by  the  name  of  patriotism,  and 
made  the  civic  virtue  of  the  ancient  State.  Rome 
was  the  object  of  a  passionate  devotion,  a  grateful 
piety,  a  religious  pride  and  veneration,  which  made 
the  most  powerful  and  perhaps  the  holiest  emotion  a 
Roman  could  know. 

*  See  Coulanges,  La  Cite  Antique. 


ROMAN  TYRANNY.  87 

But  Eome  —  the  "mother  of  his  soul,"  the  great 
loved,  revered,  awful  State,  that  put  her  sword  in 
his  hand  to  strike,  and  set  up  her  eagle  as  a  symbol 
for  his  military  adoration  and  faith,  and  covered  him 
with  her  shield  though  he  were  the  humblest  citizen 
in  the  remotest  corner  of  the  earth ;  Eome,  at  whose 
name  the  magistrate  at  Philippi  trembles  when  Paul 
appeals  to  her  protection  —  was  a  haughty,  tyrannical, 
unjust  sovereign  to  those  stilled  nationalities  that 
made  up  her  imperial  domain.  Nothing  in  all  the 
history  of  despotism  is  more  hateful  than  the  dealings 
of  Eome  with  her  conquered  provinces ;  no  aristocracy 
was  ever  more  insolent,  domineering,  and  profligate, 
than  the  oligarchy  of  officials  and  ex-officials  that 
made  the  Eoman  Senate  in  the  latter  clays  of  the 
Eepublic*  To  believe  Cicero's  eloquent  and  gener- 
ous harangues,  —  himself  proud  of  his  place  in  that 
famous  oligarchy,  —  the  feelings  of  the  provincials 
towards  Eome  could  hardly  have  been  anything  but 
a  helpless  despair  and  hate.  That  divinity,  to  which 
so  many  millions  of  human  victims  had  been  sacri- 
ficed, could  hardly  have  been,  in  their  eyes,  any  thing- 
else  than  an  omnipotent,  omnipresent,  and  inexorable 
Demon.  Ireland  in  her  bloody  memories  of  Crom- 
well, Poland  in  her  struggles  following  the  Partition, 
Greece  under  the  brute  despotism  of  Turkey,  may 
help  us  understand  the  condition  of  Syria,  Macedonia, 
Sicily,  Gaul,  or  Spain,  as  provinces  of  the  imperial 
Eepublic.  The  word  empire  (imperiwn)  in  that  day 
meant  simply  military  rule.  By  political  tradition, 
these  provinces  were  held  by  the  law  of  conquest, 
*  See  Froude's  "  Julius  Caesar." 


88  THE    MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

The  municipal  law  that  for  centuries  had  grown  up 
as  a  system  for  a  single  city  made  the  one  type  and 
rule  for  a  government  as  wide,  almost,  as  the  civilized 
world.  It  was  administered  purely  in  the  interest 
and  in  the  name  of  that  one  city  ;  and  its  executive 
officers  (pro-consul,  pro-praztor}  were  simply  her  mili- 
tary commanders  or  civil  magistrates,  who  had  served 
their  term  at  home. 

The  evil  and  iniquity  of  this  system  had  been  seen 
a  hundred  years  before  the  Empire  had  been  estab- 
lished in  its  place,  —  if  by  no  others,  by  the  great 
tribunes  Tiberius  and  Caius  Gracchus,  who  both  died 
victims  of  the  Roman  aristocracy.  A  hundred  years 
of  civil  war  had  exterminated  the  old  parties  of  the 
Eepublic.  The  genius  of  Julius  Caesar  and  the  cau- 
tious policy  of  Augustus  had  created  a  new  system,  in 
which  all  rulers,  magistrates,  and  commanders  were 
made  subject  to  the  one  Chief  of  the  Roman  world. 
It  is  not  necessary  to  speak  of  the  new  evils  which 
now  came  in  place  of  the  old  evils.  In  one  word, 
political  freedom  was  extinct.  But  that  freedom  was 
the  very  thing  men  hated  and  feared.  For  many 
generations  that  freedom  had  meant  violence  at 
home,  and  flagrant  oppression  in  the  provinces. 
Whatever  else  the  revolution  in  the  state  accom- 
plished, it  at  least  set  the  subject  states  free  from  the 
irresponsible  class  despotism  they  had  been  suffering 
under  so  long.  It  was  a  revolution  that  brought  them 
comparative  prosperity  and  repose. 

The  phrase  "  peace  of  the  Empire  "  *  is  the  name 
of  what  they  felt  to  be  an  unspeakable  relief  and  gain. 

*   The  pax  Romana. 


THE   EMPEROR   A   GOD.  89 

Their  sovereign  was  no  longer  the  hard,  cruel,  grasp- 
ing, abstract  impersonation  of  the  City,  with  her  far- 
reaching  hundred  hands,  like  those  of  a  Hindoo  idol. 
It  was  at  least  a  Man,  who  could  make  his  will 
prevail  over  the  petty  persecution  of  innumerable 
despots.  As  Paul  appealed  from  Festus,  so  men 
throughout  the  Empire  could  appeal  from  their  local 
tyrants,  to  Caesar.  Whatever  his  personal  vices  or 
crimes,  at  least  he  represented  the  unity  of  a  sover- 
eign state.  To  him  all  subjects,  all  states,  were  equal. 
It  was  no  great  flight  of  imagination  to  make  him  in 
men's  eyes  the  type  of  a  universal,  impartial  Provi- 
dence,— "image  of  all,"  say  the  Christian  Clementines. 

In  men's  eyes  he  was  more :  he  was,  very  literally 
and  simply,  a  god  in  human  form.  As  a  god,  Virgil 
says,  sacrifice  shall  be  offered  monthly  on  his  altar. 
And  Velleius  Paterculus,  who  went  with  Tiberius 
into  Germany,  tells  in  vivacious  narrative  how  a  bar- 
barian drove  his  canoe  across  the  stream,  pressed 
through  the  crowds  that  surrounded  the  imperial 
command,  gazed  long  and  earnestly  at  him,  and  went 
away  saying,  "  To-day  I  have  seen  the  gods."  * 

We  do  not  enter  readily  into  the  state  of  mind 
that  made  it  easy  and  natural  in  that  day  to  look  on 
a  man  as  a  real  divinity ;  that  literally  deified  him 

*  So  when  Pope  Alexander  III.,  in  flight  from  Barbarossa, 
landed  at  Montpellier,  a  Saracen  in  the  crowd  pressed  close  to  his 
stirrup,  so  as  to  have  a  fair  view  of  the  Christians'  god.  The  feel- 
ing of  the  barbarian  in  Velleius  is  exactly  reflected  in  that  of  the 
Southern  negroes  during  the  civil  war  "  What  you  know 'bout 
Massa  Linkura  1  "  said  one  of  them  to  an  army  officer,  who  was 
criticising  some  act  of  the  government.  "  Him  like  de  Lord  ;  him 
eberywhar." 


90  THE   MIND    OF    PAGANISM. 

because  he  was,  as  we  should  say,  the  incarnation  of 
an  idea.  Though  to  us,  too,  the  worship  of  Paul  as 
Mercury,  and  of  Barnabas  as  Jupiter,  at  Lystra,  ought 
to  make  it,  if  not  clear,  at  least  credible.  To  us  it  is 
a  very  crude  mythology ;  yet  it  certainly  was  one  of 
the  forces  that  made  it  possible  to  reconcile  men's 
minds  to  a  creed  whose  corner-stone  was  the  Incarna- 
tion of  a  Deity.  The  notion  of  a  "man-god"  —  that 
is,  of  a  Divine  Person  in  human  form  —  was  already 
familiar  to  the  pagan  mind.  The  Emperor  was 
spoken  of  in  language  that  reflects,  or  prefigures,  with 
strict  exactness,  that  applied  in  the  later  creeds  to 
the  human  life  of  Christ.  This  belief  in  the  visible 
presence  of  divinity  upon  earth  springs  no  doubt  from 
sources  very  different  in  the  Christian  and  in  the 
Pagan  mind  ;  but  they  ran  closely  parallel,  and  merged 
in  the  faith  that  included  both.  The  philosophical 
elements  that  entered  into  the  faith  belong  to  the  his- 
tory of  religious  speculation,  and  we  shall  have  more 
to  say  of  them  further  on.  Just  now  it  is  enough  to 
say,  that —  however  crude  or  impossible  it  may  look 
to  us  —  there  never  was  a  faith  in  a  deity  actually 
walking  the  earth  and  conversant  among  men  more 
positively,  sincerely,  or  in  its  way  devoutly  held,  than 
this  deification  of  the  Eoman  Emperor  among  the  peo- 
ple of  the  provinces.* 

*  The  worship  of  the  Emperor  was  forbidden  in  Rome,  toler- 
ated in  Italy,  universal  in  the  provinces.  Sixty  districts  or  towns  of 
Gaul,  each  with  its  separate  shrine,  joined  in  a  common  ritual  in 
his  service  at  a  metropolitan  temple  close  to  the  wall  of  Lyons 
(see  below).  The  assemblies  here  made  a  sort  of  provincial  par- 
liament, and  sent  regular  reports  to  Rome ;  having,  however,  no 
power  of  independent  legislation. 


WORSHIP   OF   THE   EMPEROR.  91 

For  it  was  not  court  flattery,  —  the  impious  adula- 
tion which  craves  "  the  thrift  that  follows  fawning." 
It  was  the  expression  of  gratitude  for  a  blessing  too 
great  to  have  come  from  a  merely  human  source,  for  de- 
liverance from  evils  too  great  to  be  stayed  by  a  human 
hand.  The  wreck  of  old  political  institutions  had 
destroyed  or  set  afloat  those  old  local  faiths  that  be- 
longed to  them ;  and  this  rude  but  vigorous  growth  of 
a  popular  religion  had  come  to  take  their  place,  and 
throve  on  their  decay. 

Very  significantly,  too,  there  is  scarce  a  hint  of  it  in 
the  more  familiar  literary  sources  of  our  history.  Its 
record  is  in  scattered  monuments  and  inscriptions, 
only  brought  to  light  and  deciphered  within  the  last 
few  years  ;  just  as  our  earliest  contemporary  records  of 
the  popular  Christian  faith  are  in  the  monuments  and 
inscriptions  of  the  Catacombs.  From  such  sources  we 
learn  that  there  was  not  only  the  vague  popular  ado- 
ration, such  as  Tacitus  speaks  of  when  he  ascribes 
the  working  of  miracles  to  the  Emperor  Vespasian. 
There  was  also  an  organized  worship  of  the  Emperor, 
with  temple  and  ritual,  and  a  consecrated  order  of 
priests*  Every  year  embassies  went  up  from  the 
provinces  to  Rome  to  carry  him  their  thanksgivings  or 
vows  or  expressions  of  religious  homage.  To  be  a 
member  of  that  priesthood,  or  head  of  such  an  em- 
bassy, was  a  dignity  held  in  reserve  for  men  who  had 
discharged  the  highest  official  trusts  in  their  native 
district,  a  dignity  to  be  recorded  in  inscriptions  on 
their  funeral  monuments. 

*  The  official  title  of  this  priesthood  was  Flamen  Romce  Divorum 
et  Augusti. 


92  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

The  religious  vows  were  not  merely  the  formal  or 
official  language  of  diplomatic  speech ;  but  plain  men, 
of  humble  life,  of  no  official  station  or  ambition,  re- 
corded their  private  reverence  and  homage,  or  that  of 
their  households,  — just  as  a  pious  Catholic  might  re- 
cord his  self-consecration  to  a  patron  saint,  —  in  words 
of  pious  gratitude  for  the  blessings  devoutly  ascribed 
to  Csesar  as  author  and  giver  of  daily  benefits.*  While 
each  nation  had  its  especial  deity,  he  only,  men  said, 
was  one  god  over  all  the  earth. 

To  us,  who  know  that  succession  of  Caesars  main- 
ly from  the  court  scandal  of  Suetonius  or  the  lurid 
tragedy  of  the  Annals  of  Tacitus,  there  is  something 
strange,  and  even  pathetic,  in  this  ascription  of  divine 
honors  to  such  names  as  Tiberius,  Nero,  or  Domitian. 
The  habits  of  old  faith,  the  terrible  memories  of  con- 
quest, the  immense  relief  of  comparative  equity,  secu- 
rity, and  quiet,  are  all  necessary  to  be  kept  in  mind, 
to  make  it  credible.! 

In  one  way  this  imperial  creed  brought  the  Pagan 
mind  into  most  sharp  and  direct  collision  with  the 
Christian  faith.  The  religion  of  the  State  became 
more  and  more  identified  with  the  worship  paid  per- 
sonally to  the  Emperor ;  and  any  symbolic  act  of  that 

*  See  examples  of  these  inscriptions  in  Coulanges,  Institutions 
Poliliques  de  Vancienne  France. 

t  That  the  Roman  State  —  still  a  Republic  in  name  —  should 
have  endured  for  fourteen  years  what  it  is  charity  to  call  the  insane 
freaks  and  caprices  of  one  sickly  and  weak-minded  youth,  Nero, 
is  partly  explained  by  the  remorseless  cruelty  of  the  Roman  temper 
and  manners,  but  chiefly  hy  the  name  of  Caesar,  which  he  inher- 
ited, and  by  the  deep  horror  left  on  men's  minds  from  the  century 
of  the  Civil  War. 


MARCUS   AURELIUS.  93 

worship  —  swearing  to  the  name  of  Caesar,  or  casting 
incense  in  the  formal  ritual  —  became  in  a  special 
way  the  test  of  political  loyalty.  To  refuse  it,  under 
whatever  pretext,  was  constructive  treason.  It  was 
this,  and  not  any  hatred  of  the  Christian  system,  or 
inclination  to  persecute  it  as  such,  that  so  often  put 
the  Christians  under  the  ban  of  the  State.  Most  of 
the  Emperors,  it  is  quite  clear,  would  have  been  glad 
to  evade  any  such  attack  on  a  class  of  safe,  obedient, 
trusty  subjects,  which  the  Christians  generally  were ; 
so  the  early  persecutions  were  spasmodic,  of  short 
duration,  and  far  apart.  Even  Trajan,  who  will  not 
have  the  Christians  hunted  out  or  betrayed  by  in- 
formers, must  submit  them  to  the  test  of  "  worship- 
ping my  divinity."  *  In  short,  the  more  sincere  and 
the  more  fully  developed  this  new  state  religion,  the 
more  inexorably  it  must  needs  deal  with  any  rival 
creed. 

It  is  to  be  noticed,  also,  that  the  antagonism  spoken 
of  comes  to  a  head  about  the  middle  of  the  second 
century ;  and  that  from  that  time  forth  it  is  open  war, 
with  little  truce,  until  the  stronger  faith  prevails.  At 
first  sight  it  is  strange  that  this  war  should  have  been 
declared  by  the  wisest  and  most  scrupulously  just  of 
all  the  Emperors,  —  by  Marcus  Aurelius,  who  is  ad- 
dressed by  Justin  as  if  he  was  almost  persuaded  to  be 
a  Christian,  and  whose  ethics  are  as  clear  and  austere 
as  those  of  Paul.     But  it  was  because  Aurelius  had 

*  So  I  understand  the  phrase  supplicando  diis  nostris,  comparing 
it  with  imagini  tuce  supplicarent  in  the  letter  of  Pliny.  The  spe- 
cific act  of  sacrifice  is  the  one  thing  demanded  in  the  edicts  of 
Diocletian. 


94  THE   MIND    OF   PAGANISM. 

religiously  consecrated  himself  to  the  service  of  the 
State,  because  he  scrupulously  endeavored  to  make 
himself  worthy  of  the  worship  which  the  state  religion 
enjoined,  that  he  saw  the  more  clearly  how  inevitable 
and  uncompromising  the  conflict  had  come  to  be. 

It  was  in  his  time  that  the  worship  of  the  Emperor 
came  to  its  highest  reach  of  sincerity  and  fervor. 
The  personal  virtues  of  the  "  five  good  Emperors,"  of 
whom  he  was  the  last,  contrasted  with  the  vices  of 
most  that  went  before,  had  carried  the  grateful  horn- 
age  rendered  to  Caesar  to  a  certain  loyal  and  devout 
enthusiasm.  As  a  picture  of  Napoleon  might  be  found 
sixty  years  ago  in  every  French  peasant's  cottage,  as  an 
image  of  the  Virgin  adorns  the  home  of  every  hum- 
blest Catholic  devotee,  so  the  figure  or  bust  of  the 
good  Emperor  was  to  be  found  at  the  family  altar  of 
every  pious  Eoman  subject ;  and  the  inscriptions  of 
veneration  and  homage  become  more  fervent  now 
than  ever.*  The  popular  religion  of  the  Empire  had 
now  reached  its  completest  development.  And,  if 
there  had  been  an  abiding  principle  of  life  in  it, 
Christianity  might  have  found  a  worthier  rival,  and  a 
more  doubtful  encounter. 

But  we  have  not  far  to  look  for  the  causes  of  its 
rapid  fall  from  this  culminating  point.  We  need  not 
suppose  any  wordy  hollowness  in  the  profession  of 

*  "At  this  day"  —  that  is,  in  the  time  of  Constantine  —  "his 
statues  stand  in  many  houses  among  the  household  gods  ;  he  is 
even  now  regarded  as  a  divinity;  priests,  fellows,  and  chaplains 
(flamines)  are  assigned  him,  and  whatever  antiquity  has  prescribed 
of  religious  offices."  Julius  Capitolinus,  Ch.  18  (in  Coulanges). 
The  Christian  Emperors,  down  to  Gratian,  were  regularly  deified 
after  their  death,  and  had  their  due  place  in  the  Pagan  pantheon. 


RELIGION   OF   THE   HUMBLER   CLASSES.  95 

faith  made  by  the  imperial  Stoic.  But  his  ideal  of 
character  seems  exaggerated  and  strained,  when 
divorced  from  a  positive  religious  creed,  like  that 
which  made  the  strength  of  Paul.  At  any  rate,  it 
left  exposed  some  weak  spots.  It  is  significant,  that' 
the  "  decline  and  fall  of  the  Roman  Empire  "  begins 
with  the  reign  of  his  successor.  Aurelius  himself 
invites  criticism  by  his  indulgent  fondness  for  Faus- 
tina ;  it  was  even  a  crime  against  the  State  to  leave 
that  in  the  brutal  hands  of  Commodus. 

That  crowned  gladiator  must  rudely  shock  the 
pious  faith  that  rested  on  his  father's  calm  humani- 
ties. And  Commodus  was  the  pioneer  in  a  century 
mostly  filled  with  the  names  of  military  adventurers 
—  twenty-five  in  all  before  we  come  to  that  of  Dio- 
cletian (the  first  who  was  worshipped  as  a  god  in 
his  own  person)  —  on  whose  character  and  fortunes 
that  faith  was  completely  wrecked.  Whatever  was 
genuine  in  it  was  more  and  more  rapidly  absorbed  in 
the  widening  conquests  of  Christianity,  whose  type 
of  incarnation  was  by  so  many  degrees  more  pure 
and  august.  And  the  final  battle  of  the  creeds,  at 
the  end  of  the  third  century,  may  be  said  to  have 
blotted  out  almost  the  very  memory  that  the  Pagan 
Empire  had  ever  so  much  as  pretended  to  embody 
any  conception  of  justice,  mercy,  or  religious  truth. 

There  is  another  phase  of  the  popular  religion, 
illustrated  chiefly  by  funeral  monuments  and  inscrip- 
tions, showing  more  of  the  life  of  the  humbler  classes, 
including  slaves,  respecting  which  a  brief  hint  must 
here  suffice.  The  cruel  lot  of  these  poor  creatures 
was   lightened   by   charitable    societies    and    burial 


96  THE   MIXD    OF   PAGANISM. 

societies  among  themselves.  Thet  inscriptions  express 
sometimes  a  pious  and  humble  trust  in  terms  curi- 
ously like  those  of  the  Christian  monuments  ;  some- 
times the  despairing  or  mocking  temper  we  might 
more  naturally  expect.  The  glimpse  they  give  of 
family  affection  and  kindly  feeling  is  often  very 
touching  ;  and  helps  us,  better  than  almost  any  other 
thing,  to  understand  the  "  good  ground  "  in  the  pop- 
ular heart,  where  the  new  seed  had  its  strongest 
growth. 

It  has  been  necessary  to  speak  of  the  long  attempt 
to  create  a  religion  amono-  the  ruins  of  the  old  Pa<ran 
world  chiefly  on  its  formal  side,  —  that  which  is 
shown  in  its  modes  of  worship  and  its  professions  of 
belief.  There  is  another  side,  which  shows  more  of 
what  we  may  call  the  heart  of  Paganism  ;  and  of  this 
a  word  remains  to  be  said. 

It  is  no  lesson  of  antiquarian  curiosity,  but  of  the 
latest  experience,  that  religious  passion  is  quite  as 
much  to  be  dreaded  as  any  other  form  of  human 
passion.  Perhaps,  indeed,  no  other  passion  has  gen- 
erated so  much  of  frenzy,  cruelty,  and  hate.  The 
ancient  Eomans  did  well,  from  their  point  of  view, 
to  look  with  dread  and  dislike  on  all  excesses  of 
religious  emotion,  particularly  that  which  invaded 
from  the  East,  always  the  hot-bed  and  nursery  of 
fanaticism.  When  the  delirious  rites  of  Bacchus 
were  first  known  in  Eome,  and  especially  their  effect 
on  female  worshippers,  it  was  with  a  panic  of  genu- 
ine terror  that  the  Senate  undertook  to  keep  it  at 
bay,  at  the  cost  of  tortures  and  bloody  executions.* 
*  Liv.  xxxix.  8-18  (b.  c.  185). 


MAGIC  AND  HUMAN   SACRIFICE.  97 

This  was  about  the  time  of  the  first  contact  of 
Eome  with  the  East.  Two  centuries  later,  under 
Augustus  and  Tiberius,  many  an  Oriental  superstition 
was  well  naturalized  in  Eome.  Isis  and  Serapis 
were  fashionable  divinities.  Magic,  sorcery,  and  all 
manner  of  religious  frenzy,  were  chronic  symptoms 
of  the  popular  mind.  Virgil's  Pharmaccutria  and 
Horace's  Canidia  are  the  familiar  types  of  these 
wild  superstitions.  Their  home  was  in  the  East. 
And  with  them  came  to  Eome  the  crueller  rites,  the 
self-mutilations  and  the  bloody  sacrifices,  that  belong 
to  the  worship  of  Cybele,  Dionysus,  and  the  rest. 

Now  sacrifice  in  the  earlier  time,  among  the  Greeks 
and  Eomans,  had  little  if  any  of  the  expiatory  char- 
acter afterwards  given  to  it.  There  was  not  much,  in 
those  days,  of  the  feeling  of  remorse  ;  crime  itself 
was  rather  fatality  than  guilt ;  the  Furies  that  pur- 
sued Orestes  were  charmed  away  by  no  slaughter  of 
an  innocent  victim,  but  by  a  grave  decision  of  the 
real  nature  of  his  deed.  There  was  sacrifice  of  human 
victims  —  by  Druids  in  the  woods  of  Gaul ;  by  bar- 
barians on  savage  coasts  ;  by  Greeks  or  Eomans  in 
moments  of  extreme  terror  ;  by  the  Carthaginians,  a 
Tyrian  colony,  who  thought  to  avert  the  ruin  of  their 
city  by  slaying  two  hundred  of  their  noblest  children 
before  their  Canaanitish  gods. 

But  the  ordinary  act  of  sacrifice  was  simply  an  act 
of  thanksgiving,  or  an  offering  to  avert  some  natural 
calamity,  not  an  atonement  for  the  sin  of  the  soul. 
The  father  of  the  household,  in  killing  the  creature 
destined  for  the  daily  meal,  was  priest  as  well  as 
provider,  and  set  apart  the  due  portion  to  the  house- 


98  THE   MIND   OF   PAGANISM. 

hold  divinity.  This  was  simply  a  deliberate  but 
rather  awkward  "  grace  before  meat."  "  A  tender 
lamb  from  the  fold  shall  often  stain  the  altar  "  which 
Tityrus  has  built  to  the  divine  benefactor  (who  "  will 
always  be  a  god  "  to  him)  that  has  restored  his  farm. 
This,  as  far  as  we  see,  was  the  old  Greek  or  Roman 
notion.  The  more  solemn  public  acts  of  sacrifice 
were  acts  of  divination,  not  the  atonement  of  national 
guilt  —  of  which  there  might  seem  great  need. 

The  meagre  simplicity  of  ancient  rites,  as  well  as 
the  timid  scruple  in  their  performance,  and  perhaps 
a  quickened  intensity  of  moral  feeling,  had  something 
to  do  with  the  eager  and  passionate  reception  of  for- 
eign custom.  The  Eastern  temper  in  such  things  was 
fervid,  passionate,  often  delirious,  sometimes  brutal. 
How  it  allied  itself  with  practice  of  magic,  evoking  of 
spirits,  and  what  we  should  call  animal  magnetism  — 
curiously  like  the  practice  of  spiritists  in  our  own 
day  —  belongs  more  to  the  latest  phase  of  Paganism, 
and  the  extravagances  of  the  Neo-Platonists.  But  the 
bloody  sacrificial  rites  of  the  East  were  quite  in  keep- 
ing with  the  peculiar  brutality  of  public  temper  which 
we  find  in  the  earlier  Empire. 

These  rites  went  all  the  way  from  personal  mutila- 
tions, more  or  less  severe,  to  the  ghastly  performance 
of  the  tauroholium,  in  which  the  worshipper  stood  in  a 
pit  below  a  perforated  platform,  and  was  drenched 
from  head  to  foot  in  the  shower-bath  of  blood  that 
gushed  from  the  slaughtered  bull  above.*  This  hor- 
rible ritual  was  held  to  be  a  ransom  from  all  guilt, 
and  a  pledge  of  blessedness  in  this  life  and  the  next.f 

*  The  criobolium  was  the  similar  sacrifice  of  a  ram. 

t  In  ceternum  renatm.     (See  Prudentius,  Perist.,  x.  1011.) 


INCARNATION  AND   SACRIFICE.  99 

As  the  worshipper,  reeking  and  dripping  with  the 
sanguine  torrent,  passed  out  through  the  crowd,  others 
pressed  about  him,  to  win  some  share,  by  a  touch  or 
stain,  in  the  magic  efficacy  of  that  atoning  rite.  It  is 
this  strange  custom  of  later  Paganism,  quite  as  much 
as  the  Levitical  tradition  of  the  Old  Testament,  that 
gives  emphasis  to  the  words  written  to  the  Hebrews : 
"  If  the  blood  of  bulls  and  goats  sanctifieth,  how  much 
more  the  blood  of  Christ ! "  and  again,  "  It  is  not  pos- 
sible that  the  blood  of  bulls  and  of  goats  should  take 
away  sin." 

We  have,  then,  in  the  mind  of  Paganism  at  this 
epoch,  the  twro  characteristic  religious  ideas  of  the  age 
—  Incarnation  and  expiatory  Sacrifice  —  distinctly 
conceived  and  plainly  developed,  though  in  forms 
that  make  them  more  a  travesty  than  a  counterpart 
of  the  same  ideas  in  the  Christian  creed.  The  impor- 
tant thing  to  notice  in  them  is,  that  they  are  the  ideas 
of  that  age.  They  are  not  peculiar  to  Christianity :  it 
would  be  truer  to  say  that  in  origin  and  essence  they 
are  rather  Pagan  than  Christian.  That  they  had  a 
powerful  effect  in  shaping  the  Christian  belief,  there 
can  be  no  doubt.  At  least,  they  predisposed  the  mind 
of  the  Eoman  world  to  accept  that  belief  so  broadly 
and  so  easily  as  it  did.  The  rapid  decline  of  Paganism 
in  the  third  century,  and  the  sudden  change  that 
shows  the  whole  Empire  Christian  at  the  end  of  it, 
are  facts  to  be  accounted  for  on  the  common  ground 
of  history  so  far  as  may  be.  The  triumph  of  the  latter 
cannot  be  understood,  as  a  human  event,  without  an 
understanding  of  those  causes,  working  from  within, 
which  predisposed  mankind  to  receive  it. 


THE  ARIAN  CONTROVERSY. 

THE  one  period  of  Christian  history  which  most 
fascinates  the  imagination  at  first  sight,  is  that 
when  the  new  faith  came  to  the  throne  of  empire  in 
the  person  of  Constantine  the  Great. 

And  this  first  attraction  is  fully  borne  out  by  the 
real  interest  of  the  characters  and  events  —  though 
not  in  the  way  we  might  have  thought  at  first.  To 
the  Christians,  suddenly  released  from  a  great  stress 
and  dread  of  persecution,  it  would  seem,  no  doubt,  the 
coming  of  a  perfect  day,  and  the  establishing  of  the 
kingdom  they  had  prayed  for,  once  for  all.  But  then 
came  the  inevitable  recoil  and  disappointment.  Con- 
stantine was  no  saint,  at  best,  and  a  very  doubtful 
Christian ;  but  a  victorious  general,  a  suspicious  and 
wary  politician ;  a  man  of  some  very  great  and  noble 
qualities,  indeed,  but  stained  by  one  or  two  dark 
crimes.  The  religion  he  protected  was  no  sooner  in  a 
place  of  security  and  power  than  smothered  jealousies 
burst  out,  and  religious  feuds  began,  and  the  Empire 
rang  with  the  noise  of  a  controversy  —  often  unintel- 
ligible as  it  was  disgraceful  —  whose  fame  is  hardly 
diminished  to  this  day. 

The  Arian  Controversy  has  these  two  points  of 
interest  for  us.     It  is  in  itself  one  of  the  most  dra- 


DOCTRINE   OF   THE   DIVINE   WORD.  101 

matic  and  eventful  chapters  in  the  whole  history  of 
human  opinion,  turning  on  the  adventures,  character, 
and  animosities  of  three  or  four  leading  actors,  to- 
gether with  the  lively  passions  of  great  multitudes 
of  partisans ;  and,  secondly,  it  fixed  for  a  great  many 
generations  the  type  of  the  dominant  belief,  giving  an 
answer  to  the  question,  What  sort  of  a  system,  intel- 
lectual or  religious,  should  come  to  take  the  place  of 
the  dying  Paganism  ?  These  two  make,  so  to  speak, 
the  pivots  which  sustain  our  interest  and  steady  our 
understanding  of  it. 

It  is  not  hard  to  trace  in  outline  the  development 
of  speculative  opinion  which  prepared  the  way  for 
this  extraordinary  outburst  of  religious  rage.  This, 
however,  belongs  to  the  history  of  doctrine,  and  need 
not  be  dwelt  on  here.  That  the  opinion  became  a 
passion,  and  the  motive  of  deadly  controversy  lasting- 
through  centuries,  turned  on  circumstances  in  the 
history,  and  on  principles  of  human  conduct,  not 
so  directly  obvious.  First,  however,  a  few  words  are 
needed  as  to  the  nature  of  the  controversy  itself. 

The  doctrine  of  the  Divine  Word  (Logos)  as  mani- 
fest in  the  human  life  of  Jesus  had  for  some  two 
centuries  been  the  accepted  key  to  the  interpretation 
of  the  Christian  Gospel.  More  or  less  vaguely,  the 
Word  was  held  to  take  the  place  of  the  human  soul 
in  him,  or  to  be  intimately  united  with  it,  so  that,  in 
virtue  of  it,  and  the  Divine  nature  which  it  implied, 
he  became  the  Christ. 

But  the  term  Logos  itself  has  a  double  meaning. 
On  one  hand,  it  is  identical  with  the  Divine  Wisdom, 
—  which  is,  in  fact,  constantly  used  as  its  equivalent, 


102  THE   ARIAN   CONTROVERSY. 

botli  by  the  Greek  and  Latin  writers  ;  and  in  this 
sense  it  is  simply  the  name  of  an  Attribute  of  the 
Creator.  On  the  other  hand  (by  the  habit  of  mind 
already  spoken  of  in  considering  the  Gnostic  genealo- 
gies) it  is  easily,  unconsciously,  continually  hyposta- 
tized, — that  is,  regarded  as  an  independent  Substance, 
or  quasi-Personality ;  and  in  this  sense,  as  a  pre- 
existent  Divine  Person,  is  especially  identified  with 
the  Christ. 

It  is  clear  that  we  may  make  either  of  these  con- 
ceptions prominent,  so  as  to  overshadow  or  dwarf  the 
other ;  and  we  shall  do  this  according  as  the  habit  of 
our  mind  is  mystical  on  one  side,  or  rationalizing  on 
the  other.  The  mystic,  reverential,  imaginative  mood 
dwells  upon  the  Attribute,  which  it  tends  more  and 
more  to  merge  in  absolute  Divinity,  in  the  direction 
of  a  religious  Pantheism.  The  rational,  analytic,  crit- 
icising mood  dwells  upon  the  Substance,  or  Person 
(hypostasis)*  which  it  tends  more  and  more  to  make 
distinct  and  separate,  and  therefore  a  logically  de- 
pendent and  inferior  being.  To  the  first,  the  Logos 
as  Divine  Wisdom  is  necessarily  coeternal  with  God 
himself,  as  liidit  with  the  source  of  light.  To  the 
second,  the  Logos  as  a  Divine  Person  is  necessarily 
inferior  to  and  (so  to  speak)  younger  than  the  Infinite, 
just  as  a  son  is  younger  than  his  father.  To  the  first, 
Christ  is  the  Son  of  God  figuratively,  by  eternal  gen- 
eration ;  to  the  second,  he  is  the  Son  of  God  literally, 
as  the  "  first-born  of  the  creation." 

This  radical  difference  of  mental  constitution  and 

*  Explained  by  Gregory  of  Nyssa  as  bearing  the  same  relation 
to  the  individual  as  Substance  (ovcia)  to  the  class. 


THEOLOGICAL   PASSION.  103 

habit  repeats  itself  in  all  the  phases  of  the  contro- 
versy that  followed.  The  mystic  tendency  *  appears 
as  an  exaggerated  orthodoxy,  later  known  by  the 
names  Monophysite  and  Monothelete,  till  it  runs  out 
into  the  peculiar  fanaticism  of  certain  Oriental  sects, 
to  whom  Christ  is  the  sole  and  essential  Deity.  The 
rationalistic  tendency  f  shows  itself  as  a  harassing 
and  incessant  criticism,  quite  as  intolerant  as  its 
adversary,  not  repudiating  but  putting  its  own  inter- 
pretation on  the  accepted  creed,  exiled  at  length  as 
Nestorianism,  under  which  name  it  subsists  in  the 
East  to  this  day.  The  narrow  line  of  the  church 
faith,  between  these  contrary  drifts  of  opinion,  has 
its  landmarks  fixed  in  the  decisions  of  the  first  four 
General  (or  (Ecumenical)  Councils.  J 

This  central  line  of  doctrine,  it  is  almost  needless 
to  say,  runs  a  good  deal  nearer  to  the  mystic  than  to 
the  rationalizing  opinion.  In  religious  controversy, 
it  is  not  half  so  important  that  men  should  under- 
stand their  creed,  as  it  is  that  they  should  hold  it  in 
some  well-defined  symbol  appealing  strongly  to  the 
imagination.  And  we  misunderstand  both  the  age 
of  Martyrdom,  and  the  age  of  Controversy  that  im- 
mediately followed,  unless  we  see  how  the  fervor, 
nay,  often  the  frenzy,  of  a  passionate  conviction  —  so 
nurtured  by  the  incessant  discipline  of  the  Church 
when  belief  in  it  was  a  matter  of  life  and  death  — 
will  cling  to  what  from  outside  seems  a  mere  passion- 

*  Represented  by  the  names  of  Sabellius,  Apollinaris,  and 
Eutyches. 

t  Represented  by  Arms,  Eunomius,  and  Nestorius. 

t  Viz.  that  of  Nicaea  (325),  Constantinople  (381),  Ephesus  (431), 
and  Chalcedon  (451). 


104  THE   ARIAN   CONTROVERSY. 

less  abstraction.  The  Dutch  Republic,  once  free  from 
terror  of  the  Spaniard,  went  straight  into  disputes 
about  predestination  that  risked  its  hard-bought  liber- 
ties, and  cost  the  noble  Barneveldt  his  head.  "What 
can  be  more  a  mere  abstraction,  a  mere  identical 
equation  in  logic,  than  There  is  no  God  but  God? 
Yet  the  phrase  in  which  it  rings  on  the  battle-field 
to-day  hurls  masses  of  Moslem  fanatics  against  Prus- 
sian intrenchments,  and  piles  them  dead  or  dying  in 
the  ditch,  just  as,  seven  hundred  years  ago,  it  hurled 
myriads  of  Saracens  against  the  steel-clad  ranks  of 
the  Crusaders.  It  is  the  symbol,  not  the  thing,  for 
which  men  oftenest  stake  their  lives.  In  deliberate 
sober  thought  we  choose  the  policy  we  think  most 
wise  and  safe,  —  the  theory  of  State-rights  or  the 
theory  of  the  Republic  one  and  indivisible ;  but  in 
the  fury  of  battle  men  think  less  of  that  than  of  the 
visible  sign  of  it,  the  Stars  and  Stripes  against  the 
Stars  and  Bars ! 

Now  it  happened  once  in  Alexandria,  not  far  from 
the  time  we  are  approaching,  that  a  certain  Bishop 
Alexander  was  zealously  expounding  to  his  audience 
this  cardinal  point  of  Christian  faith.  They  were 
lately  at  rest  from  a  time  of  persecution,  ready  and 
hot  for  controversy.  It  was  probably  the  exposition 
of  the  religious  symbol  in  some  such  cheap  religious 
rhetoric  as  most  of  us  have  heard  :  as  that  the  glori- 
ous Sun  in  heaven  represents  the  Father ;  his  Light, 
the  eternal  Word;  his  Heat,  the  life-giving  Spirit; 
and  so  on.  But  the  smooth  discourse  was  cut  short 
by  the  cry  of  heresy.  "  That  is  the  false  doctrine  of 
Sabellius  ! "  said  a  voice  in  the  crowd.     Now  Sabel- 


SABELLIUS   AND  ARIUS.  105 

lius,  most  pious  and  unsuspecting  of  heretics,  had 
preached,  a  few  years  before,  a  sort  of  "  modal  trin- 
ity," very  much  to  the  same  effect.  The  voice  was 
the  voice  of  Arius,  a  presbyter,  no  friend  of  the  bishop, 
of  temper  restless  and  litigious,  an  uncomfortable  an- 
tagonist in  a  war  of  words.  In  person  slender  and 
tall,  of  features  fine-cut  and  rather  sharp  ;  in  manner 
courteous  ;  careful  and  somewhat  elegant  in  dress ; 
ready  of  speech,  and  gifted  with  a  certain  keenness 
to  fasten  on  the  weak  point  of  his  adversary's  state- 
ment, and  follow  it  out  in  a  teasing,  exasperating  way 
to  some  point  of  real  or  seeming  contradiction ;  and, 
withal,  a  man  who  would  not  be  silenced  or  put 
down. 

It  is  not  likely  that  either  opponent  could  state  his 
point  so  as  to  be  very  clear  to  us,  or,  at  any  rate,  so 
as  to  seem  at  all  solvable  by  the  human  mind.  After 
many  centuries,  and  whole  libraries  of  dispute,  it  is, 
we  may  say,  as  far  from  being  solved  as  ever.  If 
Christ  is  the  Son,  said  Arius,  he  must  be  younger 
than  the  Father,  if  only  by  a  single  moment  out  of  ail 
eternity,  and  so  dependent  on  him ;  or,  in  the  test- 
phrase  of  Arianism,  "  there  was  when  the  Son  did  not 
yet  exist."  *  Nay,  was  the  reply,  he  is  the  eternal  Son 
of  the  eternal  Father :  to  deny  his  equal  eternity  is  to 
say  that  the  Sun  in  heaven  can  exist  without  giving 
light  and  heat. 

And  so  the  dispute  went  on.  It  turned  on  a  very 
fine  point, — one,  we  might  say,  invisible  to  the  naked 
eye ;  and  there  was  nothing  for  it  but  the  incessant 

*  Not,  "  there  was  a  time  when  " :  the  Logos  was  non-existent 
only  in  eternity,  before  time  was. 

5* 


106  THE   ARIAN    CONTROVERSY. 

repetition  and  reiteration  of  the  same  words.  The 
discussion  is  very  weary  to  follow,  and  it  seems  to 
lead  us  nowhere.  If  we  take  the  term  Logos  (which 
is  masculine  in  Greek)  to  signify  merely  an  Attribute, 
—  conscious  intelligence  of  the  Eternal,  —  it  is  a  sim- 
ple and  intelligible  symbol  to  speak  of  it  as  the  Son 
by  eternal  generation.  If  we  take  it  to  mean  a  Per- 
son, it  seems  impossible  not  to  distinguish  it,  by  some 
grade  of  dignity  or  precedence,  from  the  Eternal  One. 
The  arguments  of  Arius  seem  the  incessant  sharp 
rattling  of  a  logic-mill,  like  those  windy  disputes  of 
Sophists  in  Plato :  those  of  his  opponents  —  we  may 
look  through  many  a  hundred  of  the  pages  that  record 
them,  without  finding  one  that  any  man  now  would 
care  to  repeat  or  answer. 

If  we  would  understand  the  importance  of  the 
Arian  controversy,  then,  we  must  find  it  not  in  what 
is  wilful,  personal,  dramatic  in  the  story,  —  least  of 
all  in  the  speculative  opinion  on  either  side,  what 
seems  so  absolutely  apart  from  anything  that  we  un- 
derstand or  care  about  to-day  ;  but  in  what  lies  behind 
it  and  around  it.  It  is  really  the  great  feature,  the 
one  visible  feature,  of  the  intellectual  history  of  a 
time  critical  as  any  in  the  religious  and  social  desti- 
nies of  mankind. 

Let  us  transport  ourselves  now  to  the  time  when 
this  controversy  came  to  a  head  in  the  Council  at 
Nicsea  (325).  If  we  look  back  fifty  years,  we  see  the 
vast  intellectual  and  political  system  of  Paganism  — 
to  all  outward  appearance  as  vast  and  formidable  as 
ever — just  preparing  to  put  forth  all  its  forces  in  a 
final  effort  to  suppress  that  threatening,  unceasing,  in- 


A   COMPARISON   OF   CREEDS.  107 

sidious  growth  of  the  Christian  system,  and  on  the 
edge  of  its  last,  most  obstinate,  and  most  cruel  perse- 
cution. If  we  look  forward  fifty  years,  we  find  the 
same  Paganism  idealized  in  a  new  and  arrogant  sys- 
tem of  philosophy,  contending  for  intellectual  and 
political  revival  with  a  speculative  zeal  and  moral 
pretensions  fully  equal  to  the  Christianity  of  the  day, 
—  a  sort  of  eclectic  or  transcendental  free  religion,  as 
brilliantly  described  in  Kingsley's  "  Hypatia." 

How  was  it,  then,  that  in  the  middle  of  this  cen- 
tury of  revolution,  enveloped  right  and  left  by  the 
political  forces,  the  philosophical  systems,  and  the 
menacing  fanaticisms  of  the  older  civilization,  Chris- 
tians  had  time  or  heart  to  rage  so  furiously  together  ? 
And  how  was  it  that,  in  spite  of  a  conflict  which 
seemed  to  consume  all  its  strength,  Christianity  came 
out  of  it  in  a  hundred  years  stronger  than  ever,  the 
only  live  organized  power  to  stay  the  tides  of  barbar- 
ism ;  at  the  end  of  five  hundred  years,  the  base  and 
the  ideal  of  a  new  Christian  Empire,  already  rivalling 
the  power  and  dignity  of  the  old ;  at  the  end  of  a 
thousand  years,  in  possession  of  a  dominion  which 
seemed  to  Dante  then  as  secure  as  the  circles  of  his 
Hell,  or  the  portals  of  his  Paradise  ? 

There  are  two  answers  to  this  question,  one  con- 
sisting in  the  nature  of  the  thing  itself  which  was  at 
issue  between  Paganism  and  Christianity ;  the  other 
in  a  comparison  of  the  two  rival  Christian  creeds, 
Arian  and  Athanasian. 

First,  it  is  not  very  hard  to  trace  the  genealogy  of 
opinion.  The  laws  of  thought  are  uniform,  and  intel- 
lectual  systems    unfold   naturally  and   easily  by  a 


108  THE    AM  AN    CONTROVERSY. 

method  of  their  own.  So  far  as  mere  opinion  goes,  I 
do  not  see  in  the  least  why  Paganism  did  not  furnish 
materials  of  a  system  quite  as  likely  to  satisfy  a 
thoughtful  man  of  that  day,  as  the  Christianity  of  the 
■first  three  centuries.  In  fact,  we  see  that  it  did  so 
satisfy  many  of  the  very  best  and  wisest  men  of  the 
time :  Tacitus,  the  stern  historian ;  his  friend  Pliny, 
the  courteous  and  accomplished  Eoman  gentleman ; 
Plutarch,  the  biographer  of  pagan  heroes  and  critic  of 
pagan  morals ;  both  the  Antonines,  wisest  and  best  of 
statesmen ;  Galen,  the  pious  and  enlightened  physiolo- 
gist ;  Epictetus,  most  patient,  shrewd,  and  austere  of 
moralists. 

Why  should  such  men  burden  themselves  with 
Jewish  or  Galilaean  legends  that  to  them  must  seem 
foolish  and  incredible  ?  Did  not  the  caustic  wisdom  of 
Socrates,  the  high  philosophy  of  Plato,  the  scientific 
breadth  of  Aristotle,  the  elevated  and  pure  theism  of 
Cicero,  above  all,  the  large  life,  the  political  experi- 
ence, and  the  manifold  culture  of  pagan  antiquity,  — 
did  not  these  furnish  materials  for  a  religious  system 
incomparably  more  broad,  rich,  and  true  than  the  nar- 
row creed  of  Palestine  ? 

And  then,  too,  could  not  a  wise  eclecticism  adopt 
and  engraft  upon  it  whatever  seemed  really  worth  j 
retaining  of  the  fervid  religious  life,  the  "  enthusiasm 
of  humanity,"  the  methods  of  mutual  help,  in  the 
Christian  body  ?  So  it  seems,  at  least,  to  many  en- 
lightened and  cultivated  people  of  our  own  day ;  and 
so  the  thought  must  have  crossed  the  mind  of  Paul, 
himself  an  enlightened  and  cultivated  man,  when  he 
saw  with  a  sort  of  amazement  how  God  had  chosen 


THE   METHOD    OF   FAITH.  109 

the  foolish  things  of  the  world  to  confound  the 
wise,  and  weak  things  to  confound  the  mighty,  and 
base  things  to  bring  to  naught  the  haughty  and 
strong. 

But  no.  The  history  of  opinion  is  one  thing ;  the 
history  of  faith  is  another  thing.  Faith  belongs  to 
emotion,  character,  and  will.  It  is  capable  of  passion, 
of  enthusiasm,  of  obstinate  courage.  It  can  disdain 
reason,  and  trample  argument  under  foot.  It  cares 
for  reason  or  argument  only  as  a  weapon  of  attack : 
its  only  weapon  of  defence  is  confidence  in  itself.  It 
has  its  own  laws  of  growth,  which  resemble  more  the 
spreading  of  flame  than  the  skilful  joining  of  archi- 
tecture. It  has  its  own  methods  of  conquest,  of  which 
the  chief  is  to  kindle  and  sedulously  to  nurture  an 
unreasoning  devotion. 

So  it  has  been  with  all  the  great  victorious  faiths  of 
history,  from  Elijah  to  Mahomet,  from  Paul  to  Gar- 
rison. What  such  men  call  reasoning  is  only  the 
expression  of  a  passionate  conviction  ;  the  method  of 
instruction  such  men  employ  is  the  contagion  of  their 
own  ardent  thought.  In  the  great  struggle  against 
Paganism,  the  inheriting  of  that  power,  the  secret  of 
that  method,  was  with  the  Christians,  and  not  with 
their  opponents.  What  cool  and  unprejudiced  reason 
might  have  chosen  or  might  have  done  is  not  to  the 
point.  I  have  often  asked  myself,  in  the  controversies 
of  our  own  day,  whether  reason  might  not  have 
brought  better  and  safer  results  than  fanaticism  ;  and 
the  only  answer  I  could  find  was,  that  what  we  call 
fanaticism  is  one  of  the  great  forces  that  impel  man- 
kind, while  reason  is  not.     Eeason  at  best  may  serve, 


110  THE   ARIAN   CONTROVERSY. 

in  some  small  degree,  as  pilot  or  brakeman  ;  the  flame 
and  vapor  are  from  quite  another  source. 

In  the  second  place,  it  is  part  of  the  method  of 
faith,  that  it  scorns  anything  that  looks  like  compro- 
mise with  its  opponents.  Compromise  may  be  had 
after  the  victory  is  gained,  but  not  while  the  fight  is 
going  on.  Now  Arianism  was,  in  fact,  as  a  system, 
very  high-toned,  nay  almost  extravagant,  in  its  Chris- 
tian profession.  In  asserting  for  Christ  a  super- 
angelic  pre-existence  all  but  absolute  and  eternal,  it 
claimed  for  him  as  much  as  could  be  forced  from  the 
very  highest  expressions  of  reverence  in  the  Alex- 
andrine phraseology  of  Paul  or  John  ;  infinitely  more 
than  could  be  found  in  the  earlier  and  more  authentic 
gospel.  But  observe.  In  that  phrase  all  hut,  there 
lurked  a  flaw  of  heresy,  of  weakness,  of  compromise 
with  the  common  enemy.  Surely,  in  the  light  of 
simple  reason,  it  were  better  to  accept  frankly  the 
simple  humanity  of  Jesus,'  to  treat  the  nativity  as  a 
myth,  the  miracles  as  legends,  and  the  resurrection  as 
a  glorious  illusion  ;  or  else  to  say,  just  as  frankly,  that 
Jesus  was  God  in  the  flesh,  —  his  temptations,  his  suf- 
ferings, his  prayers,  a  mere  dramatic  exhibition,  or  a 
mysterious  by-play  of  his  divine  and  human  nature. 
At  least,  the  first  is  intelligible  reason,  and  the  last 
is  sublime  faith  in  a  glorified  humanity.  Either  is 
better  than  that  nondescript  illogical  compromise 
which  is  known  as  Arianism. 

And  again,  it  was  something  worse  than  a  logical 
flaw.  Did  it  not  make  Christ  the  "  Son  of  God," 
after  all,  very  much  in  the  same  way  that  Jupiter 
was  the  son  of  Saturn,  and  Mars  of  Jupiter  ?     Did 


THE  DRIFT  OF  ARIANISM.  Ill 

it  not  open  the  way  for  all  the  shocking  possibilities, 
for  all  the  blasphemous  compromises,  of  a  mongrel 
paganism,  —  nay,  to  all  the  horrible  vices  and  cor- 
ruptions that  had  grown  out  of  the  old  worships  of 
paganism  ?  If  Christians  too  are  to  worship  a  Divin- 
ity who  is  after  all  not  the  Supreme  God,  what  are 
they  better  than  their  enemies  ?  Did  they,  too,  not 
worship  sons  of  God,  —  Apollo,  Hercules,  Bacchus, 
and  the  rest  ?  Had  not  some  pagan  emperors  —  the 
brutal  Commodus  as  well  as  the  good  Severus  —  con- 
sented in  advance  to  such  a  compromise,  and  even 
admitted  Jesus  of  Nazareth  to  the  generous  Koman 
pantheon  ?  Had  not  the  best  of  all  the  emperors, 
Trajan  and  Aurelius,  proved  the  impossibility  of  that 
compromise  by  persecuting  the  Christian  faith  ? 

We  need  not  suppose  that  all  these  thoughts  came 
in  at  once,  to  make  the  feud  so  bitter  as  it  proved  to 
be.  But  they  all  lay  behind,  more  or  less  conscious- 
ly, to  make  the  controversy  obstinate  and  bitter  under 
the  successors  of  Constantine  in  a  later  age.  For 
then  Arianism  had  come  to  be  a  court  party.  Its 
perilous  drift  towards  compromise  was  seen  then, 
plainly,  on  the  side  of  politics,  —  where  it  seemed 
somehow  to  Hatter  the  self-love  and  fondness  for 
power  of  a  despotic  house  ;  as  it  was  seen,  too,  in 
the  fact  which  broadly  marks  its  destiny  in  history, 
that  it  kept  strong  hold  of  the  speculative  and  sub- 
tile Greek  mind,  and  remained  an  apple  of  discord  in 
the  East,  taking  many  shapes  and  hues,  one  creed 
having  (we  are  told)  no  less  than  twenty-seven 
anathemas  appended  to  cover  so  many  shadings  of 
dissent ;    while    the    central,    catholic,    domineering, 


112  THE   ARIAN   CONTROVERSY. 

uncompromising  faith  held  almost  undisputed  ground 
in  the  West,  where  it  became  the  basis  of  the  most 
vast  and  imposing  spiritual  dominion  ever  known. 

The  Nicene  Creed,  so  called,  is  still  the  authentic 
expression  of  that  faith,  as  read  in  the  liturgies  of 
to-day.  It  is  true  that  the  Nicene  Creed  was  itself  a 
sort  of  compromise,  prepared  at  the  summons  of  Con- 
stantine,  whose  motive  was  more  than  half  political ; 
and  signed,  with  whatever  demur,  (it  is  stated,  rather 
doubtfully,)  by  Arius  himself,  who  presently  found 
himself  high  in  favor  with  the  imperial  court.  But 
its  historical  importance  is  very  great ;  and,  as  the 
central  act  of  a  most  extraordinary  drama,  it  demands 
a  few  words  of  mention. 

We  cannot  do  justice  to  the  very  perplexing  char- 
acter of  Constantine,  unless  we  think  of  him,  with  all 
his  faults,  as  a  man  of  strong,  generous  impulses,  very 
much  dominated  at  times  by  a  vivid  imagination.  It 
was  something  more  than  policy,  it  was  a  natural 
effect  of  the  impressive,  nay,  appalling  situation  in 
which  he  found  himself,  —  at  the  head  of  a  force 
largely  Christian  marching  against  the  rude  and  fierce 
Maxentius,  who  had  mustered  whatever  there  was  in 
Borne  of  fanatic  attachment  to  the  old  religion  or 
fanatic  hatred  of  the  new,  —  that  he  saw,  or  seemed 
to  see,  a  flaming  cross  in  the  sky  at  noon,  and  set  that 
sign  above  the  crimson  banner,  the  Labarum,  under 
which  his  army  went,  cheerful  and  strong,  to  certain 
victory.  A  triumph  in  open  battle  against  the  old  gods 
of  Home  in  person  !  What  an  appeal  to  excited  imagi- 
nation on  one  side,  to  despairing  frenzy  on  the  other ! 

And  again,  when  he  traced  the  outline  of  his  new 


CONSTANTINE,  113 

capital,  the  most  felicitous  choice  ever  made  for  the 
seat  of  a  great  Empire,  lie  asserted,  and  probably  be- 
lieved, that  he  was  acting  by  Divine  guidance.  "  I 
must  keep  on,"  said  he  to  his  officers,  amazed  at  the 
wide  plan  he  traced,  "  till  the  God  who  goes  before 
me  stops."  A  man  of  strong  imagination,  lifted  sud- 
denly into  a  great  success,  comes  (as  Napoleon  did)  to 
look  on  his  own  acts  and  destiny  with  a  certain  awe  : 
lie  easily  thinks  himself  a  man  of  destiny.  Sylla  be- 
lieved in  his  star,  and  Csesar  in  his  descent  from 
gods ;  and  it  was  a  like  feeling,  half  reverent,  half 
superstitious,  that  impelled  Constantine,  under  cir- 
cumstances far  more  impressive  and  strange,  to  set 
up  in  his  new  City  that  extraordinary  symbol  of 
empire,  the  statue  of  Apollo,  or  the  Sun-god,  with 
a  head  made  in  his  own  likeness,  surrounded  by 
gilded  rays,  which,  said  popular  belief,  were  nails  of 
the  true  cross,  miraculously  discovered  to  the  em- 
peror's mother. 

It  is  interesting,  too,  and  very  touching,  amid  so 
much  that  is  pitiless  and  stern,  to  see  how  the  con- 
queror really  wished  to  be  the  father  of  his  people. 
Deserted  children,  who  before  had  been  sold  as  slaves, 
were  adopted  as  the  emperor's  own.*  It  was  a 
shameful  thing,  he  said,  that  any  of  his  people  should 
perish  of  hunger,  or  be  forced  to  crime  by  stress  of 
actual  want.  It  was  cruel  that  mothers  and  children, 
brothers  and  sisters,  husbands  and  wives,  should  be 
torn  apart  in  the  slave-market :  let  that  be  forbidden 
at  any  public  sale. 

*  The  first  orphan  asylum  had  been  founded  by  Trajan,  two 
hundred  years  before. 


114  THE   AEIAX    CONTROVERSY. 

This  sentiment  of  justice,  or  humanity,  could  not 
ripen  into  a  firm  policy  then.  At  more  than  fifteen  cen- 
turies' distance  we  are  only  groping  about  the  problem 
now.  It  resulted  in  little  else  than  making  Constanti- 
nople a  privileged  city,  which  in  that  day  meant  a  city 
of  paupers  and  courtiers.  The  dry-rot  of  the  Empire 
was  hardly  checked.  The  heart  of  society  was  perish- 
ing by  slowT  decay.  The  old  Eoman  valor  was  well- 
nigh  extinct.  The  Eoman  state  had  to  defend  itself 
by  legions  of  Goths,  whom  it  hired,  cheated  of  their  pay, 
enslaved  their  children,  and  drove  into  a  frenzy  of 
hate,  till  within  fifty  years  from  the  building  of  the 
splendid  capital  the  emperor  (Valens)  was  burned  alive 
in  the  hut  to  which  he  fled  from  the  great  disaster  of 
Adrianople  (378),  and  the  spell  was  forever  broken 
by  which  the  name  of  Borne  had  charmed  and  awed 
the  barbarian  world. 

These  calamities  could  not  be  foreseen  or  averted 
by  Constantine.  Yet  he  must  have  felt  the  slippery 
peril  of  his  elevation.  Some  forty  years  before,  Dio- 
cletian—  whose  name  is  linked  by  a  cruel  destiny 
w7ith  the  persecution  of  Galerius,  which  he  would  have 
been  only  too  glad  to  stay  * —  had  tried  to  check  the 
break-up  of  that  great  military  empire  by  dividing  it 
among  four  closely  allied  sovereigns.  A  tempest  of 
disorder,  following  his  abdication,  had  compelled  Con- 
stantine to  reduce  it  again  under  a  single  head.  The 
old  gods  of  Eome  had  been,  so  to  speak,  literally  met 
and  defeated  in  open  battle  under  the  standard  of  the 
Cross.  None  of  the  ancient  sanctities  adhered  to  the 
new  dominion.     Whatever  Constantine's  sincerity  in 

*  See  Lactantius,  De  Mortibus  Persecutorum,  cli.  xi. 


COUNCIL   OF   NICJEA.  115 

accepting  the  faith  under  whose  symbol  he  had  con- 
quered, at  least  the  formula  of  that  faith  must  not  be 
left  to  angry  and  endless  disputes  among  the  professors 
of  it ;  and  so  he  called  together  that  most  famous  of 
all  Church  Councils  which  met  at  Nicaea  to  settle 
once  for  all  the  authentic  creed  (325). 

Here,  again,  it  is  easiest  to  look  upon  the  scene  as 
it  appeared  to  the  imagination  and  human  feeling  of 
Constantine  himself.  When  he  advanced,  tall  and 
stately,  in  imperial  robes  and  attended  by  the  impe- 
rial guards,  to  preside  in  the  sacred  assembly,  —  he, 
the  champion  of  the  Cross,  the  deliverer  from  per- 
secution, the  restorer  of  peace  to  a  stormy  world,  — 
there  was  no  bound  to  the  genuine  homage  of  the 
throng  that  saluted  him,  as  if  he  had  been  a  god  in 
human  shape,  or  at  least  an  angel,  and  "  equal  to  an 
apostle."  And  he  on  his  part  saw  them  there,  scarred 
veterans  (as  it  were)  of  a  long  and  terrible  campaign, 
living  witnesses  of  a  martyrdom  in  which  many 
of  them  had  shared  the  torment,  though  not  the 
palm.  So  bruised  and  mutilated,  this  man  wanting 
an  eye,  and  that  an  arm  or  leg,  they  seemed  war- 
worn soldiers,  who,  having  served  out  their  term, 
were  summoned  once  more  to  do  battle  for  the  faith. 
To  one  old  man,  whose  eye  had  been  plucked  out  and 
scarred  by  a  firebrand,  the  emperor  went  up  tenderly, 
and  kissed  with  his  own  lips  the  scorched  and  empty 
socket,  as  if  some  healing  virtue  were  in  the  scar ;  or 
rather,  with  a  deep  touch  of  human  feeling,  to  say  by 
that  symbol  how  near  those  horrors  lay  to  his  own 
compassionate  heart.  It  was  wise  and  generous,  too, 
as  well  as  politic,  when  he  took  all  their  memorials  of 


116  THE   ARIAN    CONTROVERSY. 

personal  grievances  and  burned  them  unread  before 
their  eyes.  "  Let  the  God  of  all  things  judge,"  said 
he.  "  Eespect  yourselves  and  respect  your  office,  as 
I  myself  would  cover  up  any  fault  of  yours  with  my 
official  robe." 

The  discussion  so  auspiciously  begun  had  the  usual 
fortunes  of  theological  debate,  — "  like  a  battle  by 
night,"  says  one  of  the  old  historians  ;  so  little  could 
either  party  know  the  ground  it  stood  on.  It  lasted 
two  months.  It  produced,  by  judicious  compromise 
and  careful  definition,  what  is  known  as  the  "  Nicene 
Creed,"  a  document  of  some  twenty  lines,  which  was 
signed  by  the  delegates,  three  hundred  and  eighteen 
in  all.  Some  signed  it  under  protest,  or  filed  ex- 
ceptions to  particular  phrases  ;  but  to  Constantine  it 
was  a  state  paper  of  first-rate  importance,  not  a  mat- 
ter of  speculative  nicety,  and  he  firmly  insisted  that 
all  should  sign.  The  test-word  in  it  was  the  Greek 
word  rendered  con-substantial ;  *  and  this  has  been 
the  badge  of  orthodoxy  ever  since. 

But  the  history  of  the  Arian  controversy  was  not 
ended  at  Nicrea,  only  just  begun.  It  lasted  with  great 
violence  some  forty  years,  incessantly  disturbing  the 
peace  of  the  state.  The  terms  of  truce  were  not  (so 
to  speak)  officially  defined  before  the  Council  of  Chal- 
cedon  (451) ;  the  animosities  of  debate  have  not  ab- 
solutely disappeared  at  this  day.  For  forty  years, 
however,  it  was  an  event  in  history,  turning  mostly 
on  the  personal  fortunes,  efforts,  and  adventures  of 

*  In  Greek,  b/xoovaios  (homoousian) ,  i.  e.  "of  the  same  essence." 
The  Greek  word  viroaracns  (hypostasis),  corresponding  etymologi- 
cally  to  "  substance,"  was  rendered  in  the  Latin  creed  persona. 


ATHANASIUS.  117 

Athanasius,  who  from  this  time  forth  becomes  the 
champion  and  representative  of  the  dominant  faith. 
He  had  been  Alexander's  delegate  in  the  Council,  — 
a  young  man  then  under  thirty,  of  keen  intellect, 
indomitable  temper,  and  a  vehement  partisan,  "  tur- 
bulent, fiery,  and  imperious,"  his  enemies  said,  "  arro- 
gant, revengeful,  and  uncapable  of  being  quiet."  His 
attacks  on  his  opponents  are  more  like  shrieks  than 
argument.  "  0  modern  Jews  and  disciples  of  Caia- 
phas  S "  he  hails  them.  "  Arians  !  nay,  hollow  Ario- 
maniacs,  madmen  !  They  rob  God  of  his  wisdom 
and  his  Word.  They  shed  their  cunning  heresy  as 
the  cuttle-fish  sheds  his  blackness,  to  benighten  the 
ignorant  and  make  their  falsehood  safe."  "  A  heretic 
is  a  wicked  thing :  his  heart  is  depraved  and  impious 
at  every  point." 

Such  are  some  of  the  amenities  of  this  prince  of 
controversialists.  They  express,  it  must  be  owned,  a 
good  deal  more  the  heat  than  they  do  the  light  of 
his  opinions.  They  tell  how  he  felt,  much  better 
than  what  he  thought.  But  it  is  these  qualities, 
more  than  largeness  and  breadth,  that  give  men  a 
great  place  in  the  history  of  controversy.  He  is  the 
one  man  about  whom  are  gathered  the  passions  of 
the  struggle.  Hostility,  attack,  the  jealousy  of  ri- 
vals, or  government  prosecution,  he  met  with  the 
same  defiance. 

His  life  shows  full  of  daring,  of  ready  wit,  of  dra- 
matic incident.  As  Bishop  of  Alexandria  (where  in 
his  childhood  he  had  played  boy-bishop,  as  Cyrus 
played  boy-king),  he  was  charged  with  monstrous 
crimes,  —  peculation  and  fraud,  sacrilege  and  murder, 


118  THE  ARIAN   CONTROVERSY. 

—  the  murder  of  one  Arsenius,  whom  his  accusers  (he 
says)  kept  hid  two  years  to  give  color  to  their  charge. 
One  piece  of  evidence  was  the  dead  man's  hand,  used 
by  him,  they  said,  in  magic  rites.  Disdaining  direct 
reply,  he  led  forth  a  man  muffled  in  a  cloak,  and 
asked,  "  Does  any  one  here  know  Arsenius  ? "  He 
was  known  to  many.  He  uncovered  the  man's  face : 
it  was  Arsenius  himself.  Lifting  the  cloak  on  either 
side,  he  showed  first  the  right  hand,  then  the  left. 
"Show  me  where  the  third  was  cut  off,"  said  he, 
coolly.     This  was  his  whole  defence. 

Again,  pushing  up  the  Nile  once  in  his  little  boat, 
in  flight  from  Julian,  he  was  nearly  overtaken  by 
armed  men  in  pursuit.  Heading  boldly  down  stream, 
he  soon  reached  them,  when  they  hailed  him  :  "  Is 
Athanasius  near  ? "  "  Close  by"  said  he  ;  and  so 
passed  on  unmolested,  and  lay  safe  hid  in  Alexan- 
dria, while  they  toiled  vainly  towards  the  desert. 
Five  times  an  exile,  twice  in  Gaul  or  Eome,  once 
in  the  deserts  of  Upper  Egypt,  once  for  four  months 
hiding  in  his  father's  tomb,  he  was  at  length  allowed 
to  live  eleven  years  in  peace,  till  his  death  at  the  age 
of  seventy-six  (373). 

But  it  is  far  from  my  intention  to  give  a  biography 
of  Athanasius,  or  to  tell  the  story  of  the  time.  One 
is  pretty  safe  to  find  in  Gibbon  a  sufficiently  accurate 
travesty  of  the  event :  its  real  history  is  in  thick  vol- 
umes of  narrative  and  controversy  of  the  old  Greek 
Fathers.  There  are  only  two  points  which  I  wish  to 
present  in  closing. 

First,  in  the  final  defeat  of  the  Arian  party,  Chris- 
tianity was  saved  from  being  a  political  or  speculative 


RESULTS   OF  THE   CONTROVERSY.  119 

sect,  arid  saved  to  be  a  great  social  and  reconstructive 
force.  It  is,  perhaps,  the  misfortune  of  Arianism,  that 
judgment  must  go  against  it  by  default.  We  know 
it  mostly  by  report  of  its  adversaries.  But  that  judg- 
ment is,  that  it  began  with  disputatious  quibbling 
about  words ;  that  it  did  not  enlist  the  better  reli- 
gious feeling ;  and  that  its  strength,  when  it  had  any, 
lay  in  the  alliance  of  the  Court. 

The  "  Catholic  faith,"  so  called,  on  the  other  hand, 
was  very  positive  and  explicit;  unintelligible,  no 
doubt,  but  dogmatic  and  imperative,  demanding  and 
receiving  a  loyalty  that  did  not  stay  to  reason.  Christ 
is  very  God  of  very  God  was  the  challenge  thrown 
down  to  all  heresy  and  unbelief :  a  phrase  that  might 
not  satisfy  the  enlightened  reason,  but  attracted  the 
fervent,  passionate,  exultant  acceptance  of  whole  pop- 
ulations. Its  root  and  strength  were  in  that  unrea- 
soning —  if  you  will,  fanatic  —  loyalty.  Its  defence, 
for  forty  years,  lay  in  the  intrepidity  of  a  single  man, 
—  ardent,  whole-souled,  uncompromising,  the  one 
man  then  living  who  dared  openly  to  defy  an  em- 
peror's will. 

Athanasius  was  not  a  great  man ;  perhaps  he  was 
not  a  just  man  ;  but  he  was,  in  his  way,  a  very  strong 
man.  He  knew  well  how  to  appeal  to  men's  im- 
agination, sympathy,  reverence.  And  the  stamp  he 
gave  to  the  creed  of  his  day  was  just  what  was 
wanted  to  keep  the  faith  hot  and  intense,  as  a  work- 
ing force. 

Again,  there  is  a  broader  way  in  which  this  con- 
troversy has  told  on  Christian  history.  As  against 
his  antagonists,  the  triumph  of  Athanasius  was  the 


120  THE  ARIAN   CONTROVERSY. 

triumph  of  Europe  and  of  Eome.  Rome  was  then 
the  one  metropolitan  church  of  the  world  unrent  by 
theological  feuds,  first  and  last  a  stanch  defender  of 
the  faith  and  of  its  exiled  champion.  The  dividing 
line  between  Eastern  and  Western  Church,  so  sharply 
drawn  that  at  this  very  day  the  Pope  prefers  that  the 
infidel  Turk  should  triumph  rather  than  the  Orthodox 
Russian,  begins  to  appear  in  history  about  this  time. 
The  symbol  of  this  division  is  a  phrase  (Jilioque) 
which  the  Roman  Church  long  after  appended  to  the 
Catholic  creed,  claiming  that  the  Son  is  one  with  the 
Father  as  the  source  of  spiritual  grace. 

Now  the  quarrel  is  none  of  ours  ;  we  are  quite 
neutral  in  the  theological  debate  between  "  orthodox  " 
and  "  catholic."  But  it  is  a  very  great  matter  for  us 
—  for  better  or  worse,  and  (we  may  fairly  claim)  much 
for  the  better  —  that  our  civilization,  on  its  political, 
religious,  and  social  side,  is  the  inheritance  of  the 
West,  and  not  the  East.  The  overwhelming  defeat 
of  the  imperial  army  by  the  Goths,  five  years  after 
Athanasius's  death,  was  the  signal  of  the  fall  of  that 
avalanche  of  barbarian  invasion  which  presently  over- 
whelmed the  Roman  world.  Under  the  terror  of  that 
disaster,  the  Empire  took  refuge  with  a  chief  of  ortho- 
dox piety,  Theodosius  the  Great,  part  of  whose  work 
was  to  give  imperial  prestige  to  the  ecclesiastical 
power  —  in  the  person  of  the  great  Ambrose  —  which 
was  presently  going  to  be  the  salvation  of  the  West. 

More  than  anything  else,  it  was  just  then  impor- 
tant that  the  power  to  organize  society  and  create  the 
institutions  of  the  future  should  be  a  moral  power. 
And  that  was  the  same  as  saying  that  it  should  rest 


THE   REAL   ALTERNATIVE.  121 

on  a  religious  conviction  held  with  unreasoning  fervor, 
denned  in  a  symbol  positive  enough  to  enlist  like  a 
flag  the  passionate  loyalty  of  multitudes  of  men.  A 
decaying  civilization,  a  perishing  social  fabric,  a  polit- 
ical framework  battered  and  just  yielding  before  a 
frightful  tempest  of  invasion,  a  decrepit  Paganism, 
guilty  of  vices  that  might  not  be  named  and  cruelties 
not  to  be  recalled  without  horror,  —  these  were  on 
one  side;  and  on  the  other,  the  sublime  faith,  held 
with  whatever  of  unreason,  turbulence,  or  feud,  that 
Almighty  God  had  once  lived  bodily  among  men, 
and  that  He  did  really  in  person  lead  them  now  in 
the  fight  against  His  enemies. 


VI. 
SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

AUGUSTINE,  called  "greatest  of  the  Fathers," 
was  born  in  North  Africa  in  354 ;  was  Bishop 
of  Hippo  (now  Bona)  from  the  year  395  ;  and  died 
during  the  siege  of  this  important  city  by  the  Vandals, 
in  430.  His  fame  is  very  great  in  the  history  of 
religious  opinion.  It  rests  mainly  on  his  doctrine  of 
Predestination,  and  his  theory  of  inborn  Evil  to  be 
overcome  only  by  the  sovereign  grace  of  God.  But 
his  influence  belongs  far  more  to  his  warm,  devout, 
and  impassioned  temperament,  to  his  eager,  incessant 
activity  in  the  offices  of  the  Church,  and  to  the 
transparent  exhibition  which  he  has  made  of  himself 
in  his  Confessions,  —  a  long  and  detailed  account  of 
his  religious  life,  made  throughout  in  the  form  of  an 
act  of  devotion,  or  direct  address  to  the  Deity. 

It  is  not  easy  for  a  modern  mind  to  think  of 
Augustine  as  so  great  a  man,  intellectually,  as  he  is 
generally  claimed  to  be,  or  as  perhaps  he  really  was. 
In  particular,  he  seems  to  want  the  power,  which  a 
really  great  mind  has,  of  making  a  clear,  coherent 
statement  of  opinion,  especially  of  opinion  which 
he  has  outgrown  and  is  controverting.  It  would,  for 
example,  be  worth  a  good  deal  to  us  if  he  had  left  us 
an   intelligible   account   of  the   Manichaean   heresy, 


HIS    OPINIONS   AND    CHARACTER.  123 

from  the  point  of  view  of  a  believer,  or  even  of  a  past 
believer  in  it.  As  to  this,  we  are  obliged  to  consider 
it  more  in  the  view  suggested  from  its  enormous, 
seemingly  disproportionate  consequence  in  the  his- 
tory of  opinion  —  as  an  object  of  hate  and  terror 
from  its  origin,  about  a  hundred  years  before,  down 
even  to  the  destruction  of  the  Templars  about  nine 
hundred  years  after  the  time  of  Augustine  —  than  in 
the  violently  refracted  light  thrown  on  it  in  his  own 


writings. 


And  again,  his  cardinal  doctrine  of  Predestination 
is  a  purely  technical  and  unscientific  account  of  the 
origin  of  good  and  evil.  With  all  his  passion  for 
abstract  discussion,  it  has  no  more  real  basis  in  the 
science  of  thought  than  it  has  in  the  science  of  things. 
And  it  must  definitely  pass  away  —  in  the  form  Au- 
gustine gave  to  it,  and  which  was  all  he  cared  for  in 
it  —  under  the  different  habits  of  thought  that  come 
from  a  different  mode  of  investigation.  In  fact,  he 
had  a  very  sincere,  what  we  should  call  a  holy  horror 
of  science,  in  the  only  form  of  it  known  in  his  day. 
Mathematicians  and  astronomers,  he  thought,  were 
prying  impiously  into  the  secrets  of  the  Most  High  ; 
and  his  repugnance  to  their  line  of  study  was  only 
less  vehement  than  his  repugnance  to  sin  itself. 

Still  further,  as  Mr.  Lecky  shows,  the  influence  of 
Augustine  in  the  development  of  character,  in  the 
direction  of  moral  goodness,  itself  requires  to  be 
challenged,  or  at  least  to  be  taken  with  large  abate- 
ment. In  the  direction  of  personal  piety  it  needs  no 
such  abatement.  Perhaps  no  other  writings  than  his, 
except  the  Hebrew  Psalms,  have  done  quite  so  much, 


124  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

directly  or  indirectly,  to  lift  men's  minds  into  the 
temper  of  penitence,  humility,  and  adoration.  But 
piety  is  not  all ;  it  is  not  even  the  chief  thing  to  be 
considered.  Paul  puts  charity  before  it.  Now  charity 
—  that  human  love  which  has  no  soil  of  human  pas- 
sion —  is  of  two  sorts,  and  works  in  two  directions. 
As  growing  out  of  tenderness  and  sympathy,  and  lead- 
ing to  acts  of  mercy,  Augustine  was  a  noble  example 
of  it.  To  personal  opponents  he  was  generous ;  in 
the  treatment  of  heresy  he  was  magnanimous ;  in  a 
time  of  great  calamity  he  was  foremost  to  set  the  ex- 
ample of  self-sacrifice  and  devoted  service  in  behalf  of 
the  suffering  and  needy. 

But  there  is  another  working-out  of  charity,  which 
consists  in  expanding  men's  notion  of  what  goodness 
is,  and  must  go  along  with  intellectual  breadth  as 
well  as  pious  fervor.  It  is  not  to  condemn  Augustine 
personally,  to  say  that  the  very  glow  of  his  religious 
conviction,  narrowed  as  it  were  to  a  focus  upon  a  sin- 
gle point  of  faith,  made  the  effect  of  it  perilous,  in 
some  ways  very  mischievous,  when  the  heat  of  it 
caught  a  mind  of  baser  temper  and  less  generous  zeal. 
Hatred  of  sin  in  himself  made  him  very  tender  of 
sinners,  in  whose  evil  he  saw  the  reflex  of  his  own  ; 
but  it  could  easily  turn,  in  other  men,  into  a  fanatic 
hatred  of  those  whom  their  narrow  judgment  con- 
demned of  sin.  Awe  at  the  Divine  sentence  passed 
on  human  guilt,  in  which  he  figured  nothing  less  ter- 
rible than  flames  of  everlasting  anguish,  might  easily 
come  in  them  to  justify  any  violence  of  threat  and 
torture  by  which  they  could  lessen  the  chances  of 
that  appalling  doom.    And  so  that  one  enormous,  un- 


HIS  PLACE  IN   HISTORY.  125 

speakable  horror,  which  shadows  as  if  with  a  bloody 
pall  the  history  of  Christendom  for  thirteen  hundred 
years,  —  tortures  of  flame,  rack,  dungeon,  haunting 
suspicion,  infamous  betrayal  for  opinion's  sake,  —  all 
could  find  a  sort  of  pretext,  and  in  one  sense  had  a 
source,  in  the  vehement,  undiscriminating,  unsparing 
temper  of  Augustine's  war  on  the  heretic  Pelagians 
and  the  schismatic  Donatists. 

It  is  necessary  to  make  these  large  qualifications  at 
the  start,  because  really  it  is  hard  to  speak  of  Augus- 
tine's name  and  influence  so  as  to  avoid  mere  blank 
laudation  *  He  was  a  very  strongly  marked  man,  in 
his  way  a  great  man.  He  is  generally  called  the 
greatest  of  the  Fathers;  that  is,  of  the  Christian 
writers  of  the  first  six  or  eight  centuries.  Compari- 
sons are  difficult  in  such  a  case :  there  is  no  scale  by 
which  souls  can  be  accurately  weighed ;  though  this 
might  be  allowed  without  ranking  him  very  high 
among  the  great  minds  of  the  world.  But  he  was, 
unquestionably,  what  may  be  called  one  of  the  great 
characters  of  history ;  one  of  the  very  greatest  moral 
forces  in  the  region  both  of  character  and  of  events 
that  grow  from  character. 

Now,  when  we  think  of  a  man's  place  in  history, 
we  are  very  apt  to  think  of  it  as  of  the  place  of  a 
brick  in  a  wall,  or  of  a  statue  in  a  niche,  —  as  if  it 
might  be  taken  away  with  no  other  special  loss ;  as 
if  some  other  might  have  occupied  it  without  much 

*  As  a  curious  testimony  to  this  eminence,  it  is  said  that  at  this 
day  the  Moors  near  Bona  (the  modern  Hippo)  call  him,  in  honor, 
"  the  great  Roman,"  and  in  pious  memory  of  him  visit  every  Fri- 
day the  ruins  of  the  church  where  he  was  bishop.  — Ozanam,  Civi- 
lisation au  cinquieme  Siecle,  Vol.  II.  p.  2. 


126  SAINT   AUGUSTINE. 

change  in  the  surroundings.  But,  in  truth,  a  man 
fills  his  place  among  human  events  very  much  as  the 
roots  of  a  tree  fill  the  interstices  of  the  soil :  they 
either  burrow  a  way  by  their  own  vital  force,  or  a 
way  is  made  for  them,  inconceivably  intricate,  by  the 
seemingly  chance  adjustment  of  stones  and  mould. 
More  accurately  still,  he  fills  his  place  like  a  vital 
organ  in  the  body,  itself  a  part  of  that  living  network 
of  tissues  whose  fibres  and  cells  must  be  reckoned  by 
many  millions,  which  it  has  helped  and  helps  to 
create.  So  that,  when  we  are  speaking  of  a  very  great 
personal  force,  such  as  that  of  Augustine,  it  is  not  as 
if  it  were  something  transferable,  which  might  have 
appeared,  perhaps,  in  another  century ;  but  something 
that  grew  out  of  and  acted  back  on  the  innumerable 
and  intricately  mingled  circumstances  of  the  time. 

What,  then,  were  those  circumstances  ?  I  must 
sketch  them  very  broadly:  we  are  already  entering 
the  twilight  of  the  Dark  Ages ;  and  any  slightest 
glimpse  we  have  of  them  shows  that  we  are  standing 
at  the  boundary-line  of  two  historic  periods.  The 
life  we  are  considering  spans  that  line  at  midway,  and 
serves  as  our  easiest  transition  from  one  period  to 
the  other. 

The  year  395  was  one  of  those  inexplicable  times 
of  panic,  when  prophecies  fly  about  in  the  air,  and  a 
superstitious  fear  exaggerates  the  real  terror  of  coming 
events.  It  was  just  three  hundred  and  sixty-five 
years,  as  men  reckoned,  since  the  crucifixion  of  Christ. 
Thus  the  religion  had  endured  for  one  prophetic  cycle. 
A  crisis  had  come  in  its  destinies.  Some  great  change 
was  impending :   its  enemies  said,  to  bring  it  to  a 


A  YEAR  OF  TERROR.  127 

sudden  end,  and  restore  the  old  system  of  things ;  its 
friends  said,  to  open  before  it  a  new  era  of  strength, 
perhaps  to  bring  visibly  the  triumphant  coming  of 
the  Messiah,  and  his  victorious  reign.* 

Various  things  happened  just  then,  as  always  hap- 
pen at  such  a  time,  to  deepen  the  terror,  to  confirm 
the  hushed  and  eager  expectation.  That  year  the 
great  Theodosius  died;  and  with  him,  says  Gibbon, 
died  the  genius  of  ancient  Borne.  Now  first  the  per- 
manent line  of  separation  was  drawn  between  the 
Eastern  and  Western  Empire,  parted  between  his  two 
incapable  sons.  Within  a  month  after  his  death,  in 
the  dead  of  winter,  vast  hordes  of  barbarians,  no 
longer  held  back  by  the  dread  of  his  name,  poured 
across  the  frozen  Danube  to  threaten  Italy  and  Greece: 
poured  like  a  tide-wave,  driven  on  by  a  great  storm 
of  wilder  invasion  behind,  —  in  front  the  Goths,  after 
them  the  terrible  and  hardly  human  Huns. 

As  that  low  thunder  began  to  be  heard  along  the 
North,  the  spell  of  an  unearthly  horror  seemed  to 
seize  on  men's  minds,  Pagan  and  Christian  alike.  Six 
years  before,  the  emperor  had  decreed  by  edict  the 
overthrow  of  Paganism ;  and  at  a  blow,  or  rather  by 
a  hundred  blows  wildly  struck  at  once  throughout  the 
empire,  temple  and  altar  and  consecrated  image  and 
secret  shrine  went  down.  The  work  was  done  by 
swarms  of  monks,  who  issued  from  the  monasteries 
of  East  and  West,  with  eager,  triumphant,  iconoclastic 
zeal.  To  quote  the  words  of  Gibbon,  "In  almost  every 
province  of  the  Eoman  world  an  army  of  fanatics, 
without  authority  and  without  discipline,  invaded  the 

*  See  De  Civitate  Dei,  xviii.  54. 


128  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

peaceful  inhabitants;  and  the  ruin  of  the  fairest 
structures  of  antiquity  still  displays  the  ravages  of 
those  barbarians,  who  alone  had  time  and  inclination 
to  execute  such  laborious  destruction." 

Now  it  was  not,  to  either  party  in  this  wild  cru- 
sade, the  mere  destruction  of  temple,  grove,  altar,  or 
sacred  image.  Still  less  was  it  to  them  what  it  is  to 
us,  the  mere  destruction  of  Greek  and  Eoman  art. 
To  the  Pagan  mind  the  old  gods  were  tutelar  divini- 
ties of  land  and  city :  their  downfall  left  their  walls 
naked  to  the  invader.  To  the  Christian  mind  these 
gods  were  Demons  of  awful  and  as  yet  unknown 
power.  They  had  been  worsted,  so  far,  in  the  life- 
and-death  struggle  with  a  still  mightier  power,  fer- 
vently believed  to  be  the  very  presence  of  Almighty 
God  himself.  But  suppose  one  shade  of  doubt  as  to 
this ;  or  suppose  that  in  his  dark  decree  God  chose 
to  leave  his  people  for  a  season  naked  to  their  ene- 
mies !  Who  could  tell  what  vengeance,  what  terror, 
the  "  demons  "  they  had  fought  against  might  yet  have 
it  in  their  power  to  inflict  ?  * 

Besides,  had  not  they,  too,  been  brought  up  to  re- 
vere before  all  earthly  things  the  majesty  of  Borne  ? 
Was  not  that  very  imperial  majesty  itself  sundered 
before  their  eyes  ?  Were  not  rumors  of  peril  such  as 
had  not  been  dreamed  of  for  near  eight  centuries,  so 
invincible  had  seemed  the  Eternal  City,  even  now 
echoing  in  their  ears  ?  They  could  not  look  forward, 
as  we  from  a  long,  safe  distance  can  look  back,  to  see 
how  the  storm  should  sweep  over  and  water  the  earth, 
making  it  bring  forth  a  more  generous  growth ;  and 
*  See  De  Civitate  Dei,  xx.  13  (compare  ii.  10,  x.  21). 


HIS   CONVERSION.  129 

how  its  lightnings  should  strike  down  or  scorch  away, 
first  of  all,  noxious  things,  that  while  they  stayed  made 
any  better  world  impossible.  They  were  in  the  gloom 
of  its  blackness,  and  the  mutterings  of  its  thunder 
were  close  upon  them.  In  a  few  years  more,  Eome 
was  taken  and  sacked  by  Alaric  (410).  The  spell  of 
her  great  name  was  broken.  Her  desolation,  to  use 
the  lammao-e  of  the  time,  was  as  the  desolation  of 
Babylon  the  great,  and  of  Nineveh,  which  Jehovah 
had  cursed  of  old.  In  men's  imagination,  the  fall  of 
Eome  seemed  almost  the  very  dissolution  of  the  globe. 

History  can  only  give  us  the  incidents  of  the  scene, 
not  the  passion  and  the  terror  that  belong  to  it.*  The 
record  of  a  time  is  truly  read  in  the  minds  of  those 
living  at  the  time  :  not  in  the  events,  which  must  be 
gathered  and  put  together  afterwards;  but  in  the  atmos- 
phere, which  can  alone  make  the  picture  of  them  real. 
This  atmosphere  we  find,  more  than  anywhere  else, 
in  the  writings  of  Augustine ;  and  it  is  to  him  we 
must  turn,  in  brief,  to  get  such  interpretation  as  we 
may  of  the  thought  of  the  time.  That  thought  we  shall 
find,  for  our  present  uses,  in  the  three  aspects  under 
which  his  writings  have  now  to  be  considered. 

I.  His  public  life,  as  Bishop  of  Hippo  in  Africa, 
began  in  that  year  of  panic  and  dread,  395,  and  lasted 
thirty-five  years,  till  his  death  in  430.  Ten  years 
before,  at  the  age  of  thirty-one,  was  his  conversion,  — 
an  event  of  such  note  that  it  is  commemorated  in  the 
Koman  calendar  to  this  day.     It  may  be  worth  while 

*  All  that  can  be  gleaned  from  the  meagre  annals  of  the  time 
will  be  found  in  Hodgkin's  "  Italy  and  her  Invaders  "  (Oxford, 
1880). 

6*  i 


130  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

here  to  give  Ills  own  tender  and  dramatic  account  of 
it.  He  had  listened  to  the  preaching  of  Ambrose, 
and  had  been  pondering  with  a  friend  the  writings  of 
Paul  in  much  agitation  of  mind  ;  and  wTas  strolling  in 
the  garden,  when  he  heard  a  voice  saying,  Tolle,  lege; 
tolle,  lege :  "  Take,  read ;  take,  read."  At  first  he 
thought  it  wTas  spoken  in  some  children's  game ;  but 
suddenly  it  struck  him  that  the  voice  must  be  an 
angel's.  "  So,  checking  my  tears,  I  rose,  judging  it  to 
be  nothing  else  but  a  command  to  read  the  first  words 
of  the  book  I  should  find  on  opening.  For  I  had 
heard  of  thy  servant  Antony,  that  coming  in  while 
the  gospel  was  read  he  took  it  as  a  warning  to  him- 
self, Go  sell  all  that  thou  hast  and  give  to  the  poor,  and 
come  follow  me;  and  by  that  word  was  at  once  turned 
to  thee.  Eagerly  then  I  returned  to  where  my  friend 
sat,  where  I  had  left  the  volume  when  I  came  away. 
I  took  it,  opened  it,  and  read  silently  the  words  my 
eye  first  rested  on  :  Let  us  walk  honestly,  as  in  the  day ; 
not  in  rioting  and  drunkenness,  not  in  lewdness  and 
debauchery,  not  in  strife  and  jealousy  ;  but  put  on  the 
Lord  Jesus  Christ,  and  make  not  provision  for  the  flesh 
to  satisfy  its  lusts.  I  read  no  more,  and  had  no  need 
of  more ;  for  instantly,  at  the  end  of  this  sentence,  a 
calm  light,  as  it  were,  entered  my  heart,  and  all  the 
darkness  of  doubt  passed  away." 

Nothing  is  said  here  of  any  change  of  opinion,  or 
of  the  solution  of  any  intellectual  doubt  that  may 
ever  have  troubled  him.  As  far  as  such  a  thing 
could  be,  it  was  a  purely  moral  conversion,  a  change 
of  sentiment,  emotion,  and  will.  Eemorse  for  boy- 
ish faults,  such  as  stealing  a  neighbor's  pears,  or  for 


MANICILEISM.  131 

loose  living  in  his  youth,  made  only  a  part  of  it,  — 
most  likely,  only  a  small  part  of  it.  It  was  rather 
a  recoil  against  the  whole  theory  of  life  by  which  he 
had  been  living  hitherto.  Especially,  it  was  closely 
connected,  in  his  own  mind,  with  that  marked  in- 
tellectual change  which  consisted  in  renouncing  the 
Manichsean  philosophy,  and  accepting  with  great  in- 
tensity of  conviction  Paul's  own  doctrine  of  good 
and  evil.* 

Just  what  this  Manichsean  opinion  was,  what  was 
its  strange  fascination  to  the  most  cultivated  thought 
of  that  time,  and  what  made  it  the  great  bugbear  of 
true  believers  for  a  thousand  years  together,  it  is  not 
easy  to  state  to  a  modern  mind.  Augustine's  own 
statement  of  it,  as  I  have  said  before,  is  turbid,  con- 
fused, and  unintelligible.  But  it  must  have  some 
meaning  to  us,  if  we  could  only  get  at  it,  seeing  that 
it  makes  so  large  and  imposing  a  figure  in  the  history 
of  opinion. 

Its  essential  principle  is  commonly  explained  as 
simple  Dualism,  in  some  such  way  as  this.  The 
Universe  consists  of  two  vast  realms  —  infinities,  we 
might  call  them  —  which  are  polar  oppositeS :  Light 
and  Darkness.  Where  they  come  in  contact,  there  is 
interminable  strife.  The  darkness  aspires  to  the  light, 
hungers  for  it,  engulfs,  or  (it  is  Augustine's  word)  de- 
vours a  portion  of  it ;  and  from  their  contact  is  pro- 
duced the  visible  world,  including  the  nature  of  man. 

*  "  In  turmoil  of  mind  (cestuans)  I  asked,  Whence  is  Evil?  "What 
were  the  agonies  of  my  laboring  heart !  what  groans,  0  my  God ! 
And  there  were  thine  ears,  when  I  knew  it  not.  And  when  in  si- 
lence I  made  bold  to  ask,  loud  was  the  cry  appealing  to  thy  mercy, 
dumb  the  anguish  of  my  soul." —  Con/.,  vii.  7. 


132  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

In  him,  again,  the  soul  represents  (or  is  born  of)  light, 
and  the  body  darkness.  So  man  is  the  subject  of  a 
divided  empire ;  and  the  conflict,  for  all  we  see,  must 
be  eternal. 

Now  this  may  pass  very  well  for  a  sort  of  poetry, 
telling  in  symbols  the  story  of  that  strife  which  we 
see  going  on  in  the  world  about  us,  and  are  conscious 
of,  more  or  less,  within  us.  But  it  is  not  easy  to  see 
why  Augustine  should  have  hated  it  so,  when  once 
he  had  left  it  behind ;  why  the  Church  should  have 
feared  it  so,  that  the  first  blood  shed  for  heresy,*  and 
the  most  ferocious  of  Crusades,!  should  have  been  on 
the  charge  of  this  deadly  misbelief.  At  first  sight  it 
does  not  seem  so  very  different  from  Paul's  own  doc- 
trine of  the  war  of  flesh  and  spirit ;  it  looks  like 
quite  the  same  thing,  in  other  terminology,  with  the 
Church  doctrine  of  Satan  as  the  adversary  of  God, 
wThich  was,  in  fact,  derived  from  the  same  Oriental 
source.  For  the  Persian  Mani  —  who  had  been 
seized  and  flayed  alive  (according  to  the  common 
story)  a  hundred  years  before  by  the  king  of  Persia 
—  had  only  set  in  more  exaggerated  and  poetic  strain 
the  old  Zoroastrian  scheme  of  Good  and  Evil,  en- 
grafting on  it  some  wild  mythology  of  creation,  and  a 
scheme  of  redemption,  which  is  only  a  strange  phan- 
tasmagory,  coupled  with  some  Gnostic  tradition  of  a 
Christ.J  I  do  not  know  how,  seen  merely  from  the 
outside,  we  could  easily  tell  the  difference  between 

*  Of  the  Priscillianists  in  Spain,  a.  d.  385. 

t  That  against  the  Albigenses,  1208-1229. 

t  The  corapletest  statement  of  the  Manichaean  doctrine  that  I 
have  seen  is  in  Mosheim's  "  Commentaries  "  on  the  First  Three 
Centuries. 


EVIL  PHYSICAL  OR  MORAL.  133 

Augustine's  earlier  and  later  theoretic  view,  as  touch- 
ing the  conflict  of  good  and  evil  in  human  nature. 

We  must  look  at  it,  therefore,  in  another  way,  from 
the  point  of  view  of  religious  experience.  According 
to  the  Manichsean  view,  the  source  of  Evil  is  physi- 
cal ;  it  exists  in  the  nature  of  things.  Man  is  subject 
to  it  because  he  is  part  of  the  system  of  things.  The 
conflict  is  fought  out,  as  it  were,  by  vast  impersonal 
forces,  which  he  can  have  no  hand  in  guiding.  And 
so  the  system  becomes  one  of  Fatalism,  —  fatalism  of 
that  most  hopeless  and  unrelenting  sort  which  makes 
a  man's  soul  (as  it  were)  a  mere  shifting  focus,  where 
the  rays  of  light  and  darkness  meet,  and  his  destiny 
is  the  plaything  of  their  caprice.  In  other  words, 
its  view  is  speculative  and  physical,  not  ethical.  It 
is  of  the  conflict  of  Light  and  Darkness  simply,  not 
of  Eight  and  Wrong.  "  I  had  rather,"  says  Augustine, 
of  his  own  Manichsean  days,  "  that  thine  unchanging 
Substance  erred  of  necessity,  than  my  own  inconstant 
nature  by  will ;  and  that  Sin  befell  by  immutable 
law  from  heaven,  that  so  man  should  be  free  of  its 
guilt,  while  in  proud  corruption  of  flesh  and  blood." 

And  thus  the  modern  counterpart  of  Manichseism 
—  if  we  would  understand  it  from  the  corresponding 
thing  in  our  own  experience  —  is  to  be  found  in  that 
scientific  fatalism  which  is  one  of  the  threatening 
forms  of  modern  thought,  which  we  are  well  used  to 
in  the  speculations  of  certain  pessimists  and  evolu- 
tionists. I  am  anxious  not  to  add  to  the  rancor  of 
any  prejudice  that  may  happen  to  exist.  Evolution 
is  the  accepted  dominant  philosophy  of  the  day.  I 
accept  it  too,  so  far  as  I  am  entitled   to  exercise 


134  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

private  judgment  on  so  large  a  matter;  desiring  in 
all  humility  to  know  whatever  there  is  true  in  it, 
and  seeming  to  find  in  it  the  explanation  of  more 
dark  facts  in  life  than  is  found  in  any  other  system. 
But  the  instant  it  takes  the  form  of  fatalism  as  to 
the  good  or  ill  in  human  character,  of  helpless  scep- 
ticism as  to  the  course  of  human  destiny,  or  despair 
of  social  progress,  I  surmise  that  there  is  something 
wrong,  and  that  man's  mind  is  capable  of  something 
better. 

The  insidious  temptation  to  that  way  of  thinking 
we  ought  to  be  aware  of  in  ourselves,  if  we  would 
judge  the  thought  of  Augustine  and  his  contempora- 
ries. We  should  see  it  not  historically  alone,  as  it 
touched  them,  but  in  thoughts,  images,  and  influ- 
ences  that  reach  us  too.  The  gloomy  imagination 
of  Shelley  was  strangely  impressed  by  watching  an 
Alpine  glacier  that  seemed  "  crawling  "  from  its  bleak 
lair  to  swallow,  like  some  monstrous  dragon,  the  fer- 
tile valley  and  the  smiling  life  below ;  and  he  thought 
of  it  as -a  symbol  of  the  Fate  which  irresistibly  over- 
rides and  crushes  human  hope. 

Astronomers  tell  us  the  day  is  coming  when  all 
this  globe  will  be  blasted,  empty,  frozen,  incapable 
of  life ;  and  to  some  this  suggests  a  certain  chilling 
despair  as  to  the  value  and  end  of  human  effort.  To 
others  again  it  seems,  after  all  these  ages  of  costly 
and  toilsome  progress,  as  if  civilization  itself  were 
going  to  be  the  prey  of  those  appalling  wars  that 
have  followed  one  another  like  thunder-shocks  in 
these  last  five  and  twenty  years,  and  still  threaten  ; 
or  of  the  vices  and  miseries  that  like  a  cancer  eat 


NATURE  OF  THE  CONFLICT.         135 

at  its  very  heart.  And,  if  a  serious  and  devout 
thinker,  like  Carlyle  or  Euskin,  can  be  tempted 
now  to  this  intellectual  despair,  how  was  it  in  that 
day,  when  the  one  only  fabric  of  society,  polity,  and 
art  men  knew  seemed  crumbling  on  ODe  hand  from 
interior  decay,  and  threatened  on  the  other  by  the 
irresistible  avalanche  of  savage  hordes  ?  The  wild 
strange  heresy  of  the  Manichees  was  as  it  were  the 
echo  in  their  soul  of  that  knell  of  doom  which  seemed 
clanging  from  all  things  around,  in  the  downfall  of  a 
perishing  world. 

Now  it  is  not  the  warped  judgment  of  a  church- 
man ;  it  is  the  judgment  of  Comte  in  his  masterly 
outline  of  mediaeval  history,  it  is  the  judgment  of  that 
cool  positivist,  John  Morley,  in  his  apologetic  essay 
on  Voltaire,  that  civilization  was  narrowly  saved,  at 
this  crisis  of  its  fate,  by  the  organized,  valiant,  ag- 
gressive faith  of  Christendom.  How  its  conflict  was 
carried  on,  and  how  its  victory  was  gained,  belongs  to 
the  study  of  the  next  four  centuries,  ending  with  the 
Christian  Empire  of  Charlemagne.  Just  now,  we  are 
standing  at  the  moment  of  time  which  determined 
what  the  nature  of  that  struggle  should  be.  And  this 
decision  was  precisely  contained  in  the  nature  of  that 
change  which  passed  upon  the  mind  of  Augustine  in 
the  hour  of  his  conversion. 

It  is  hardly  too  much  to  say  that  that  revolt  of 
his  moral  nature  against  the  doctrine  of  the  Mani- 
chees had  in  it  the  germ  and  the  key  of  that  great 
spiritual  evolution.  For  the  very  point  of  it  was  that 
it  shifted  the  ground  of  conflict.  The  source  of  Evil, 
it  showed  him,  is  not  in  the  physical  world ;  it  is  in 


136  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

the  moral  world.  The  battle-ground  is  not  the  nature 
of  things ;  it  is  the  nature  of  man.  The  conflict  of 
good  and  evil  is  to  be  fought  out  in  the  soul.  It  is 
not  as  if  man's  salvation  were  staked  on  some  great 
game  j)layed  by  invisible  combatants  in  the  wide  field 
of  the  universe,  —  a  game  in  which  he  has  no  hand 
and  cannot  see  the  moves.  It  is  narrowed  down  to 
the  field  of  his  own  mind ;  and,  whatever  outside 
forces  are  engaged  in  it,  they  are  first  of  all,  so  to 
speak,  personified  in  his  own  reason,  conscience,  pas- 
sion, and  will.  Just  where  and  just  because  he  is 
most  intensely  conscious  of  his  own  personality,  there 
and  therefore  comes  the  great  alternative  of  right  or 
wrong,  of  life  or  death. 

-  Now  it  is  in  the  very  conviction  of  sin  itself  that 
one  first  has  the  true  idea  of  good ;  just  as  it  is  when 
we  would  do  good  (as  Paul  says)  that  evil  is  present 
too.  For  the  two  are  counterparts  ;  so  that  not  only 
we  cannot  know  one  without  the  other,  but  we  cannot 
know  either  of  them  in  any  other  way  than  through 
that  struggle  against  the  other.  Nay,  more.  We 
cannot  really  know  anything  about  God,  of  any  con- 
sequence for  us  to  know,  except  as  the  power  within 
us  "  that  makes  for  righteousness  "  in  the  struggle ; 
that  "  works  in  us  both  to  will  and  to  do."  The  phys- 
ical nature  and  conditions  (so  to  speak)  of  Infinite 
Good  —  what  we  call  the  Divine  Attributes  —  are  as 
impossible  for  us  to  define  as  those  of  Infinite  Evil. 
And  so  in  the  very  struggle  itself  we  have  an  assur- 
ance, the  only  assurance  we  can  have,  that  the  great 
spiritual  forces  of  the  Universe  itself  are  on  our 
side ;  in  short,  that  our  salvation  (which  means  our 


THE  PELAGIAN   CONTROVERSY.  137 

"  safety  "  in  it)  is  the  direct  gift  of  Almighty  God 
himself. 

This  we  may  take  to  be  the  real  sense  of  the 
Pauline  or  Augustinian  doctrine  of  justification  by 
faith,  as  seen  in  the  light  of  personal  experience,  and 
especially  as  against  the  Manichaean  heresy.  Au- 
gustine stakes  his  position  in  that  controversy  on  the 
point  of  moral  freedom.  To  him  it  is  a  shocking 
thing  to  say  that  anything  is  originally  and  essentially 
evil.*  Evil  is  a  corruption  of  some  native  good ;  a 
ruin,  a  fall,  not  a  destiny  from  the  beginning.  To 
attain  the  higher  life  is  not  a  conquest  of  something 
alien ;  it  is  winning  back  our  birthright.  This  con- 
viction lay  at  the  heart  of  Augustine's  creed.  To  con- 
ceive it,  further,  as  a  force  in  history,  we  must  think 
of  it  not  as  a  mere  form  of  philosophic  speculation 
with  him,  but  as  a  vivid,  intense,  fiery  conviction, 
such  as  he  conceived  it  in  the  moment  of  conversion, 
and  such  as,  in  the  heated  warfare  of  opinion,  he  has 
stamped  the  impression  of  it  on  the  Christian  mind. 

II.  I  have  dwelt  thus  out  of  seeming  proportion 
on  Augustine's  relation  to  the  Manichaean  controversy, 
both  because  it  is  the  most  obscure  in  itself,  and  be- 
cause it  gives  the  exact  point  of  view  from  which  to 
consider  the  two  other  chief  intellectual  tasks  of  his 
life.  Of  these  the  first  was  his  controversy  with  Pe- 
lagius,  —  the  great  unending  debate  of  Destiny  and 
Moral  Freedom. 

In  one  sense  this  controversy  is  impotent  and  futile, 
turning  on  a  question  that  necessarily  remains  un- 
solved and  unsolvable,  the  shuttlecock  of  metaphysics 

*  See  the  "  Dialogue  with  Faustus." 


138  SAINT   AUGUSTINE. 

since  thought  began.  At  whatever  point  we  start,  — 
divine  foreknowledge,  destiny,  natural  law,  evolution, 
—  strict  logic  brings  us  straight  to  one  or  another 
form  of  necessity.  Eegarcled  scientifically,  moral  lib- 
erty is  not  even  thinkable.  On  the  other  hand,  no 
sooner  do  we  come  to  the  facts  of  life,  —  action,  con- 
duct, the  judgment  of  motives,  responsibility  for  re- 
sults, personal  appeal,  —  than  we  take  for  granted  at 
every  step  that  moral  freedom  which  our  theory  de- 
nies. Accept  whatever  theory  you  will  of  antecedent 
and  result,  with  its  logical  consequences,  and  you 
are  a  fatalist  at  once,  helpless  sport  of  destiny.  Try 
to  state  to  yourself  any  theory  you  will  of  human 
action,  and  apply  it  to  men's  character  and  conduct, 
the  instant  you  say  I  will  or  I  ought,  you  have  come 
upon  other  ground.  You  have  admitted  in  terms  that 
fact  of  human  life  which  is  all  your  opponent  really 
contends  for,  however  irreconcilable  to  your  own  his 
way  of  stating  it.  Life  incessantly  re-creates  the  faith 
which  science  as  incessantly  denies. 

All  this  is  very  simple  and  elementary  business. 
Leaving  now  the  platitudes  of  metaphysics,  let  us  at- 
tempt to  see  the  great  debate  as  it  enters  here  upon 
the  field  of  history.  It  is  very  interesting  to  watch 
the  combatants :  Augustine,  with  the  hot  blood  of  his 
native  Barbary  coast;  a  small,  thin  man,  nervous, 
fiery,  intense,  goaded  by  memories  of  his  own  sins  of 
the  blood,  haunted  b}r  the  thought  of  a  Hand  that  had 
been  held  out  to  snatch  him  from  destruction,  humbly 
sensitive  of  his  own  helplessness  in  that  crisis,  and 
clinging  like  Paul  to  the  thought  of  a  Divine  Power 
he  must  always  lean  on  for  strength,  himself  only  the 


AUGUSTINE  AND  PELAGIUS.  139 

meanest  instrument  of  an  Almighty  Will ;  Pelagius, 
with  the  clear,  cool  head  of  his  native  Britain,  large  of 
frame,  slow  of  speech,  grave,  honest,  weighty,  his  self- 
mastery  trained  by  strife  of  wind  and  ocean-wave,  of 
firm,  resolute  will,  clear  conscience,  cheerful  courage, 
and  masculine  understanding  *  The  two  had  kind 
thoughts  and  respect  for  one  another,  for  they  had 
met  in  personal  debate;!  but  the  controversy  their 
names  represent  lay  as  much  in  their  radical  differ- 
ence of  temperament  as  in  the  difference  of  theory 
they  started  with. 

It  is  of  no  use  now  to  take  up  their  arguments.  As 
it  must  always  be  in  the  field  of  action,  vehement 
conviction  had  the  better  of  sober  common-sense,  and 
Pelagius  went  back  to  the  calmer  life  of  his  native 
North.  Was  that  a  thing  to  regret  ?  At  least  it  was 
inevitable.  The  men  who  make  the  deepest  mark  on 
history  are  the  men  who  feel  with  a  deep  and  intense 
conviction  that  they  are  instruments  of  a  higher 
Power,  their  own  will  governed  by  a  vast  Force 
behind  them,  impersonal  and  uncontrollable.  This 
seems  to  be  the  case  even  in  direct  ratio  to  their 
weight  of  personality  and  vehemence  of  resolution: 
with  Paul,  Augustine,  Luther;  with  William  of 
Orange,  Cromwell,  Napoleon,  —  the  men  of  God,  or 
else  the  men  of  Destiny. 

And  perhaps  it  was  better  so.  Here  I  will  quote 
the  historian  Michelet.  "  To  reduce  Christianity,"  he 
says,  "to  a  mere  philosophy,  were  to  strike  it  with 

*  To  complete  the  parallel,  later  belief  added  that  the  two  great 
antagonists  were  born  in  the  same  year. 

t  See  Augustine's  letter  to  Pelagius  (Ep.  146). 


140  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

death,  and  to  rob  it  of  the  future.  What  would  the 
dry  rationalism  of  the  Pelagians  have  availed  when 
the  German  invasion  came  ?  Not  that  proud  theory 
of  liberty  needed  then  to  be  preached  to  the  conquer- 
ors of  the  Empire,  but  the  dependence  of  man,  the 
al mightiness  of  God.  To  temper  that  fierce  bar- 
barism, all  the  religious  and  poetic  fervor  of  Chris- 
tianity was  none  too  intense.  The  Eoman  world  felt 
by  instinct  that  it  must  seek  its  own  refuge  in  the 
ample  bosom  of  Eeligion.  That  was  its  hope,  its 
only  asylum,  when  the  Empire  that  had  called  itself 
eternal  was  passing  away  in  its  turn,  with  the  nations 
it  had  subdued.  .  .  .  The  mystic  doctrine  triumphed. 
As  the  barbarians  came,  the  controversy  ceased  ;  the 
schools  were  closed  and  still.  It  was  faith,  simplicity, 
patience,  the  world  needed  then." 

The  partisan  applause  of  Augustine  because  his 
doctrine  triumphed,  and  the  theological  odium  into 
which  his  opponent  fell,  are  both  alike  discreditable 
to  the  occasion  and  the  man.  But  —  as  afterwards 
in  the  sharp  warfare  in  which  the  Protestant  Prefor- 
mation was  plunged  —  it  was  a  time  of  crisis  and 
peril.  At  such  a  time  men  must  look  well  to  the 
keenness  of  their  weapons,  and  not  spare  blows  in 
the  thick  of  the  fight.  It  was  well  that  that  doctrine 
triumphed  which  was  likeliest  to  enlist  men's  pas- 
sions on  the  side  of  religion  and  virtue.  But  Augus- 
tine, any  more  than  Calvin,  cannot  claim  our  full 
verdict  for  all  his  acts.  Of  the  two  the  first  had 
far  the  more  generous,  the  tenderer,  the  broader 
nature ;  and  of  the  two  his  theological  scheme 
more  thoroughly  and  deeply  made  part  of  his  own 


THE   CITY  OF  GOD.  141 

religious  experience.  He  felt  that,  in  a  sense,  every- 
thing was  at  stake  in  the  debate ;  and  this  is  his 
claim  for  pardon,  that  his  vehemence  in  controversy 
stirred  up  hate  against  his  opponents,  and  they  even 
charged  him  with  using  the  arm  of  the  law  against 
them,  and  exciting  the  persecution  under  which  they 
suffered.  At  least,  the  moderate  and  gentle  temper 
he  began  with  gave  way,  and  his  name  is  unhappily 
used  to  justify  the  vindictive,  unreasoning  malice  that 
has  spurred  on  the  hunting  of  heresy  to  this  day. 

III.  Of  the  very  great  bulk  of  Augustine's  writings 
the  largest  part  consists  of  exhortations,  discussions, 
expositions,  that  filled  up  the  spaces  of  his  routine 
work  during  his  five  and  thirty  years  of  office.  One 
famous  treatise  stands  out  in  strong  relief  from  the 
mass  ;  and  for  breadth  of  mind,  largeness  of  view, 
orderliness  of  argument,  or  mastery  of  style,  his  fame 
rests  chiefly  on  this,  —  "  The  City  of  God." 

The  book  abounds  in  arguments  that  would  seem 
childish  now.  Its  notion  of  sacred  history  is  formal, 
uncritical,  and  dogmatic.  Its  sketch  of  early  events 
is  at  once  tediously  minute  and  curiously  incomplete. 
Its  reasoning  on  natural  things  shows  all  the  igno- 
rance and  incompetency  of  an  unscientific  age.  Its 
expositions  of  Scripture  are  impossible  to  accept,  its 
personal  testimonies  of  miracles  and  wonders  impos- 
sible to  believe.*  In  other  words,  it  has  just  the 
intellectual  defects,  the  bigotries,  ignorances,  and 
superstitions,  of  the  human  mind  at  that  day. 

But  it  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  on  these.     They 

*  See  in  particular  the  very  curious  and  detailed  account  of 
these  miracles  in  Book  xxii.,  chap.  8. 


142  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

are  faults  on  the  surface,  sometimes  running  down 
into  the  substance,  of  a  great  and  noble  work,  —  the 
one  really  great  work  that  the  human  mind  produced, 
we  may  say,  for  four  or  five  centuries,  at  least  within 
the  limits  of  the  Western  Empire.  Its  substance  I 
cannot  dwell  on ;  of  its  temper  and  occasion  a  few 
words  remain  now  to  be  said. 

The  title  of  the  book  shows  the  splendid  concep- 
tion that  lay  in  the  mind  of  Augustine,  —  a  concep- 
tion which  we  may  call  the  final  culminating  and 
idealizing  of  the  old  Messianic  hope.  It  set  up,  as  it 
were,  a  magnificent  standard  of  faith,  right  on  the 
spot  and  at  the  time  that  must  see  the  great  battle 
of  Christ  and  Antichrist  fought  out. 

The  time  of  its  composition  was  between  the 
fall  of  Eome  under  Alaric  the  Goth  and  the  more 
furious  invasion  of  the  Vandal  Genseric.  At  that 
moment  of  chief  horror  and  despair,  when  the  brav- 
est were  appalled  at  a  disaster  that  so  appealed  to 
men's  imagination,  when  even  believers  began  to  ask 
whether  Christianity  had  not  proved  impotent  to  the 
task  of  holding  the  defences  Paganism  had  main- 
tained so  long,*  Augustine  threw  down  this  sublime 
challenge  to  their  faith. 

His  tone  is  proud,  confident,  uncompromising, 
triumphant  in  advance.  It  is  attack,  and  not  de- 
fence. He  puts  point-blank  the  contrast  of  the  "  Two 
Cities  "  as  he  calls  them  :  the  City  of  this  World,  the 
abode  of  superstition,  cruelty,  violence,  conquest,  lust, 
greediness,  hate,  —  all  illustrated  in  the  record  of 
pagan  Eome ;  the  City  of  God,  with  its  marvellous 

*  See  the  Introduction,  and  compare  Book  xx.,  chap.  13. 


THE  IDEAL  STATE.  143 

chronicle  of  prophecy  and  miracle,  the  saints  and 
heroes  of  its  glorious  calendar,  its  constant  assurance 
and  proof  of  superhuman  aid,  its  magnificent  promise 
of  future  ages  that  shall  be  its  own,  illustrated  from 
the  sacred  records  of  Hebrew  faith.  The  two  are 
elaborately  contrasted  in  their  origin,  their  progress, 
and  their  end,  in  the  second  and  larger  division  of  the 
work  ;  the  former  part  having  already  shown,  in  even 
superfluous  detail,  how  helpless  Paganism  had  been 
to  secure  blessing  and  safety  to  its  adherents  in  this 
world,  and  how  empty  was  its  promise  for  the  world 
to  come. 

The  phrase  itself  City  of  God  carries  a  suggestion 
of  the  compact,  highly  organized  municipalities  of 
Italy  or  Greece,  and  their  capacity  to  call  out  and 
sustain  the  most  strenuous  and  devoted  patriotism. 
The  ancient  City  stood  for  natural  justice,  armed  and 
codified,  for  a  common  welfare,  and  for  protection 
against  assault.  Its  justice,  perhaps,  was  class-priv- 
ilege. For  liberty  it  had  only  "liberties."  But  it 
was  at  once  the  highest  political  conception  men  knew 
then,  the  most  sacred  and  revered  type  of  authority 
they  could  comprehend.  And,  in  making  it  the  key 
to  his  argument,  Augustine  lias  given,  as  it  were, 
the  Eoman  counterpart  of  that  "  Kingdom  of  Heaven  " 
which  the  Jews  looked  for  in  their  Messiah's  reign. 

He  offers,  however,  no  such  promise  of  a  kingdom 
upon  earth.  This  ''kingdom  of  heaven  is  within." 
The  "  City  "  is  purely  ideal,  spiritual,  heavenly.  The 
miseries  of  the  good  and  bad,  so  far  as  human  eye  can 
see,  will  continue  alike  and  equal  through  the  pres- 
ent life  to  the  end  of  time ;  the  visible  separation 


144  SAINT  AUGUSTINE. 

will  be  hereafter.  The  blessedness  of  the  righteous 
on  earth  is  peace ;  the  wretchedness  of  hell  itself  is 
interior  conflict,  even  if  there  were  no  everlasting 
flame*  In  this  fundamental  thought  of  the  "City 
of  God"  we  have,  again,  the  complement  of  that 
thought  illustrated  in  Augustine's  reaction  against 
Manichseism,  which  shifts  the  conflict  of  good  and 
evil  to  the  world  within,  and  stakes  all  in  life  that 
is  worth  living  for  on  the  soul  itself.  This  point  of 
contrast  with  Manichausm  is  urged  in  several  places 
in  the  "  City  of  God."  The  blessing  promised  to  good 
men  is  not  that  they  escape  the  anguish  or  the  terror, 
but  that  they  are  victorious  over  it. 

If  we  can  look  back  now  a  few  years,  to  the  time 
of  our  own  great  national  struggle,  to  those  seasons 
of  disaster  and  defeat  when  to  large  numbers,  brave 
and  fearful  alike,  the  struggle  itself  seemed  bootless 
and  hopeless  ;  and  if  we  can  remember  the  enormous 
advantage  then  of  our  faith  in  an  ideal  Eepublic, 
one  and  indissoluble,  —  that  sublime  ideal  of  political 
justice  and  popular  right  which  made  the  nation's 
victory  and  strength ;  then,  I  think,  we  may  conceive 
something  of  what  it  was,  as  the  world  plunged  into 
those  long  dark  ages  of  barbarism  and  strife,  to  have 
that  one  flag  kept  proudly  flying  above  that  one  im- 
pregnable fortress  of  the  City  of  God  ! 

The  ages  that  followed,  when  the  Church  was  at 
length  victorious  in  its  new  empire,  do  not  fulfil  the 
promise  of  that  grand  dream,  any  more  than  our  new 

*  See  the  exquisite  chapters,  Book  xix.,  ch.  13,  14 ;  also  the 
brief  but  profound  one,  xix.  28 ;  together  with  the  noble  and 
sweet  cadence  with  which  the  work  concludes. 


THE   CITY   OF   GOD.  145 

Kepublic  fulfils  the  hope  of  those  who  fought  to  save 
it,  and  gave  their  lives  freely  in  that  hope.  But  we 
can  see  at  least  that  one  great  danger  is  past.  We 
know  now  better  than  we  knew  then  the  evil  and 
fatal  nature  of  that  which  threatened  the  national 
life.  So  it  was  when  men  could  look  back  after- 
wards, and  see  the  strong  lines  in  which  Augustine 
had  traced  the  contrast  between  two  orders  of  society. 
And,  in  the  appalling  miseries  and  divisions  that  tor- 
mented the  world  for  several  centuries,  it  is  not  likely 
that  one  brave  man,  or  one  frightened  woman,  ever 
once  looked  back  regretfully  for  the  protection  that 
could  have  been  given  by  an  Empire  which  had  so 
proved  itself  abominable  and  accursed 


VII. 

LEO  THE  GREAT. 

TO  deal  intelligently  with  an  epoch  like  that  of 
Leo  the  Great  (440-461),  it  is  especially  necessary 
to  bear  in  inind  the  aggressive,  militant,  antagonistic 
position  of  the  Church  in  human  history.  Our  the- 
ory of  Christianity  may  be  a  theory  of  development ; 
but  the  facts  we  have  to  deal  with  are  the  incidents 
of  a  loug,  obstinate,  often  deadly  struggle.  That 
struggle  takes  mainly  three  directions,  —  against  Pa- 
ganism, against  Barbarism,  and  against  corruptions 
engendered  in  the  Church  itself.  At  present,  we  are 
concerned  only  with  the  first. 

Now,  to  make  any  conflict  effective,  the  first  con- 
dition of  all  is  that  the  force  shall  be  a  disciplined 
force,  and  shall  act  with  absolute  singleness  of  pur- 
pose, in  absolute  obedience  to  a  single  will.  The 
smooth  theories  of  a  time  of  peace  will  not  suit  a 
period  of  war.  Christianity  as  "  free  religion  "  would 
have  perished  in  a  single  generation.  If  we  consent 
to  see  that  it  was  in  any  sense  at  that  time  a  saving 
power  in  the  world  ;  if  it  was,  in  fact,  the  genius  and 
spirit  that  carried  society  without  WTeck  through 
many  generations  of  confusion  and  disaster,  —  we 
shall  be  content  to  see  the  conditions  on  which  that 


THE   PAGAN  REACTION.  147 

work  could  "be  done  then.  And  of  these  the  first  of 
all  was  that  the  Christian  Church  should  be  united, 
organized,  loyal,  absolutely  confident  of  itself,  and 
thoroughly  understanding  the  work  it  had  to  do. 

Now,  if  we  only  remember  that  the  last  great  bat- 
tle fought  by  Borne  —  that  in  which,  with  Goths  for 
allies,  she  succeeded  in  crippling  the  army  of  the 
Huns,  in  a  fight  that  cost,  it  is  said,  three  hundred 
thousand  lives  —  was  in  the  year  451 ;  that  the  next 
year  the  hordes  of  Attila,  with  recovered  strength, 
hovered  like  a  flight  of  vultures  above  the  plains  of 
Italy  ;  that  three  years  later  Genseric  with  his  Van- 
dals swept  Kome  almost  clean  of  its  vast  treasures  of 
gold,  silver,  and  bronze,  and  precious  works  of  art ; 
that  these  things  happened  in  the  very  middle  of 
Leo's  rule,  while,  within  twenty-five  years  after  his 
death,  the  spectral  sovereignty  of  Rome  itself  came 
to  an  end,  and  the  barbarian  was  lord  of  the  Western 
Empire,  —  we  shall  see  distinctly  that  we  have  come 
to  the  death-agony  of  the  ancient  State.  And,  as  this 
great  agony  was  coming  on,  the  East  was  racked  and 
vexed  by  the  bitterest  of  theological  debates,  only  sus- 
pended at  Chalcedon  in  451 ;  while  in  the  West,  and 
at  Alexandria,  the  intellectual  centre  of  the  empire, 
there  was  a  revival  of  classic  Paganism  which  threat- 
ened the  very  life  of  Christianity  itself. 

I  cannot  speak  at  length  of  the  causes,  only  men- 
tion some  of  the  symptoms,  of  the  extraordinary  pagan 
revival  which  followed  for  a  generation  or  two  the 
edict  of  Theodosius  closing  the  temples,  and  forbid- 
ding the  public  worship  of  the  gods.  The  last  pagan 
writer  of  vigorous  Latin  prose,  Ammianus,  ends  his 


148  LEO  THE  GREAT. 

story  with  a  vivid  account  of  the  desperate  battle 
about  Adrianople  (378),  in  which  the  Goths  broke 
once  and  for  all  the  spell  of  the  Eoman  name.  Three 
years  later,  Paganism  was  nominally  abolished  by  im- 
perial edict.  But  five  and  twenty  years  after  that, 
while  Alaric  was  training  his  Goths  in  Italy,  Clau- 
dian  could  celebrate  alike,  with  easy  courtliness,  in 
purely  pagan  fashion,  the  exploits  of  the  brave  Stili- 
cho,  and  the  holidays  of  Honorius  who  murdered  him, 
or  recite  in  smooth  epigram  the  miracles  and  mys- 
teries of  the  Christian  record  ;  while  at  Alexandria 
Hypatia  lent  the  charm  of  her  beauty  and  eloquence 
to  the  new  Platonism  that  glorified  the  old  gods  of 
Greece  with  transcendental  finery,  till  she  was  torn 
to  pieces  by  a  mob  of  monks  (415). 

The  pagan  games,  with  circumstances  of  barbarity 
and  horror  of  which  I  shall  have  more  to  say  at  an- 
other time,  were  still  celebrated  in  circus  and  amphi- 
theatre. A  certain  insolent  fashion  of  ignoring  the 
new  creed,  with  the  growing  power  built  upon  it,  had 
taken  hold  of  the  popular  mind,  and  was  still  domi- 
nant in  literature  and  art.  And,  for  the  last  strange 
proof  how  vital  and  tough  were  the  roots  of  old  su- 
perstition, when  Alaric  appeared  before  the  gates  of 
Eome,  Etruscan  soothsayers  were  sent  for,  to  see  if  by 
their  incantations  they  could  yet  save  the  city ;  and 
promised  that  they  would  do  it,  (we  are  told,)  but  at 
the  cost  of  human  sacrifice,  and  of  rites  so  horrid  that 
the  people  refused  them  at  the  hour  of  their  greatest 
terror.  Even  Pope  Innocent  the  Eirst,  then  in  Eome, 
had  consented,  it  is  said,  that  this  last  appeal  to  the 
pagan  magic  should  be  made. 


SURVIVAL  OF  THE  PAGAN   SPIRIT.  149 

Now,  at  the  time  of  this  siege,  the  Empire  had  been 
nominally  Christian  for  about  a  hundred  years.  How 
long  the  spirit  and  belief  of  Paganism  remained  after 
this,  it  is  of  course  impossible  to  say.  The  last  great 
work  of  Augustine's  life  was  to  argue  in  his  "  City  of 
God "  against  this  very  reaction,  when  it  seemed  as 
if  the  new  religion  had  failed  to  hold  the  ground  con- 
quered under  the  ancient  gods  of  Eome.  What  he  so 
argued  against  was  but  a  helpless  and  despairing  cry. 
The  old  wreck,  swarming  as  it  was  with  many  evil 
forms  of  life,  was  soon  swept  disastrously  away.  As  a 
clear-eyed  man  like  Leo  could  see,  even  then,  there 
was  only  one  power  that  could  take  its  place. 

To  the  common  eye  the  struggle  might  look  doubt- 
ful, even  yet.  Paganism  had  lost  its  hold  on  men's 
reason.  On  their  conscience  it  never  had  any  very 
firm  hold  at  all.  But  it  held  strong  grasp  on  two 
great  springs  of  human  action,  their  imagination  and 
their  fear.  We  have  just  seen  to  what  acts  the  terror 
of  the  siege  had  nearly  led.  And,  for  the  imagina- 
tion, it  had  taken  full  possession  of  the  forms  of  liter- 
ature and  art.  Except  for  a  few  rude  hymns  feeling 
their  way  to  the  common  heart  in  a  simple  popular 
rhythm,  except  for  a  few  rude  shapes  and  symbols 
of  Christian  imagery,  there  was  nothing  to  fill  the 
great  void  left  by  the  perishing  of  ancient  art.  For 
centuries  yet,  Christian  poets  clung  helplessly,  as 
it  were,  to 

"  The  fair  humanities  of  old  religion, 
The  power,  the  beauty,  and  the  majesty 
That  had  their  haunts  in  dale,  or  piny  mountain, 
Or  forest  by  slow  stream,  or  pebbly  spring, 
Or  chasms  and  watery  depths." 


150  LEO   THE   GREAT. 

After  seven  centuries  of  implacable  monastic  rule, 
Dante  has  still  a  half-belief  in  Charon  and  Pluto; 
and  when  the  revival  of  letters  came,  a  little  later, 
the  old  deities  sprang,  as  it  were,  from  the  soil  of  the 
new  culture,  and  nourished  in  a  sort  of  pallid  life 
down  almost  to  our  day.  But  that  life  had  run  in 
all  the  veins  of  the  ancient  world,  where  each  state 
had  its  own  divinity,  and  every  formal  act  was  a  re- 
ligious symbol;  where  the  head  of  the  State  was  a 
god  visible  in  the  flesh,  and  the  very  places  of  public 
amusement  were  temples  of  Mars  and  Venus,  the 
divinities  of  violence  and  lust.  So  that  it  was  still, 
in  the  middle  of  the  fifth  century,  a  hand-to-hand 
struggle  in  which  the  Church  was  engaged,  if  not 
with  Paganism  itself,  in  its  cruel  older  forms,  at 
least  with  those  compromises  of  its  spirit  found 
under  the  names  of  Priscillianist  and  Manichaean, 
against  which  Leo  waged  an  unsleeping  and  un- 
tiring war. 

Again,  we  must  look  from  his  point  of  view,  not 
ours,  at  the  controversies  that  divided  and  disgraced 
the  Christians  of  the  East.  It  was  not  controversy 
between  the  friends  and  opponents  of  the  orthodox 
belief.  Each  party  eagerly  and  honestly  claimed  his 
own  to  be  the  true  exposition  of  the  Xicene  faith. 
Thus  Apollinaris,  fervently  maintaining  the  doctrine 
of  his  friend  Athanasius,  who  had  sojourned  with  him 
in  some  of  his  travels,  fell  into  the  heresy  that  Christ's 
body  was  of  heavenly,  and  not  of  human  substance. 
Maceclonius,  taking  the  creed  too  literally  in  its  lim- 
itation as  well  as  its  assertion,  was  charged  with  sub- 
ordinating the  Spirit  to  the  Father  and  the  Son ;  to 


NESTORIUS  AND   EUTYCHES.  151 

meet  which  the  Council  at  Constantinople  expanded 
that  clause  a  little  (in  381).  Nestorius,  holding 
strongly  to  Christ's  human  nature,  saw  blasphemy  in 
the  phrase  "  Mother  of  God  "  applied  to  Mary ;  saying 
that  Jesus  was  divine  not  intrinsically,  but  was  made 
so  by  the  indwelling  Deity.*  And  in  the  storm  of 
controversy  that  burst  out  on  this,  hardly  stayed  by 
the  decree  at  Ephesus  (431),  Eutyches,  an  Alexan- 
drian monk  of  seventy,  went  so  far,  in  his  hot  ortho- 
doxy, as  to  say  that  the  divine  nature  in  him  quite 
absorbed  the  human. 

To  us  these  disputes  are  battles  in  the  thinnest  of 
air ;  but  then  they  were  matters  very  literally  of  life 
and  death.  Nestorius,  who  had  himself  been  a  hard, 
high-handed  ecclesiastic,  was  banished  to  the  confines 
of  Egypt ;  and  so,  living  a  long  life  of  exile  he  left  a 
sect  that  bears  his  name  down  to  our  day.  The  party 
of  Eutyches  took  violent  possession  of  the  synod  at 
Ephesus  (449),  the  "  robber-synod,"  where  they  car- 
ried their  point  not  by  acclamation  only,  but  by  blows ; 
so  that  their  chief  opponent  was  literally  beaten  and 
trampled  to  death,  and  the  Eoman  delegates  sent  by 
Leo  to  maintain  the  primacy  of  Eome  barely  fled  with 
their  lives. 

Such  was  the  state  of  things,  so  far  as  touched  his 
own  immediate  work,  with  which  Leo  had  to  deal. 
It  presents  two  sides  of  a  conflict  which  we  find  in- 
cessantly present  in  his  writings.     Now  Leo  was  not, 

*  The  terms  by  which  he  signified  the  operation  of  the  Divine 
nature  in  him  were  •'indwelling"  (eW/070-is),  "  assumption"  or 
"  adoption  "  {kvaX^is),  "  inworking  "  (ivepyeta),  "  inhumanizing  * 
(£vavdp<t>-Kr)(ris) ,  i.  e.  abiding  in  humanity. 


152  LEO  THE   GREAT. 

in  any  sort,  a  pietist,  a  sentimentalist,  a  recluse.  He 
was  first  of  all  a  Roman  statesman,  with  the  clear 
sagacity,  the  resolute  will,  the  firm  and  inexorable 
temper  when  a  point  must  be  carried,  the  wary  vigi- 
lance, the  unswerving  persistency,  that  had  made  the 
Eomans  masters  of  the  world.  He  had  this  advan- 
tage over  them,  besides,  that  his  policy  dealt  with  con- 
victions, not  with  armies  and  state  powers,  so  that 
his  clear  intelligence  had  free  range  to  act,  moving 
in  the  intangible  region  of  ideas,  where  no  friction 
is  ;  while  he  was  in  full  command  of  the  intellectual 
sympathies  and  the  moral  conviction  which  are  al- 
ways the  deepest  moving  forces  of  the  time.  One 
does  not  read  a  page  of  his  writings  without  seeing 
how  complete  his  conviction  is,  and  how  perfect  his 
command  of  those  springs  of  power. 

Then  he  was  a  man  of  absolute  courage,  —  not  sim- 
ply that  easy  "courage  of  his  convictions"  which 
enables  or  compels  one  who  has  any  strong  convic- 
tion at  all  to  give  it  expression  somehow  without  dis- 
guise, but  that  personal  physical  courage  as  well,  which 
with  a  man  dealing  in  theories  and  policies  is  much 
more  rare.  This  absolute  courage  it  was  which  made 
him  meet  without  blenching,  squarely  as  an  equal, 
the  terrible  Attila,  when  sent  to  intercede  with  him 
for  the  trembling  inhabitants  of  Borne,  and,  by  what 
seemed  then  a  miracle,  but  was  indeed  only  the  mir- 
acle of  mind  over  brute  force,  won  from  him  the 
terms  by  which  he  left  Italy  unharmed ;  then,  two 
years  later,  gained  from  the  relentless  Genseric  such 
conditions  as  still  left  security  of  life,  when  the  city 
for  the  second  time  was  at  the  mercy  of  the  barba- 


THE   DELIVERER   OF   ROME.  153 

rian.  Perfect  courage  joined  with  dignity  of  office 
never,  perhaps,  won  a  nobler  victory.  I  copy  here  the 
words  of  no  eulogist,  but  of  a  clear  and  somewhat 
severe  critic  of  the  growth  of  papal  power. 

"  The  emperor,  the  court,  the  wealthy,  and  the  noble 
had  fled  at  the  approach  of  danger  ;  the  intrepid  Bishop, 
strong  in  faith  and  hope  and  love,  alone  remained  at  the 
post  of  honor  and  of  peril;  and,  when  the  satiated  foe 
had  retired  and  left  the  city  emptied  of  all  its  wealth 
and  substance,  and  almost  reduced  to  a  wilderness  of 
deserted  habitations,  there  remained  none  to  advise  or 
to  cheer  the  famishing  remnant  but  the  undaunted 
Bishop  and  his  gallant  clergy.  These  had  never  quitted 
their  posts ;  these  had  faced  the  foe,  and  averted  the 
extremity  of  ruin ;  and  their  example  alone  kept  alive 
the  spark  of  life  among  the  despairing  multitude  that 
still  clung  to  their  desolate  homes.  It  is  in  this  spon- 
taneous chieftainship  that  we  recognize  one  of  the  most 
effective  elements  of  the  subsequent  political  greatness 
of  the  Roman  bishops.  The  decaying  mass  of  civil  in- 
stitutions became  as  manure  at  the  root  of  the  papacy. 
Papal  Rome  drew  nourishment  from  dissolution,  courage 
from  despair.  In  desperate  emergencies  like  that  we 
have  just  adverted  to,  no  one  will  look  into  or  scrutinize 
too  closely  the  claims  and  titles  of  the  deliverer ;  in 
such  times  the  duties  of  civil  and  spiritual  government 
are  thrust  into  the  hands  best  able  to  execute  them ; 
both  duties  are  impelled  into  the  same  channel,  and 
flow  on  naturally  and  amicably  together.  To  Leo  it  was 
due  that  Rome  was  not  converted  into  a  heap  of  smoul- 
dering ashes  ;  and,  if  natural  justice  were  to  decide  the 
question  between  the  Church  and  the  State,  without 
doubt  the  Pope  was  the  rightful  governor  of  Rome, 
7* 


154  LEO   THE   GREAT. 

for  without  him  there  would  have  been  no  Rome  to 
govern."  * 

It  is  a  mark  of  the  real  greatness  of  Leo,  that  these 
striking  and  dramatic  events  do  not  appear  to  have 
even  ruffled  the  surface  of  his  mind.  They  are  mere 
incidents  in  the  discharge  of  his  duty,  perhaps  dis- 
tractions from  what  he  felt  to  be  his  true  work.  It  is 
a  mark  of  his  wisdom,  too.  In  his  judgment  of  the 
relative  importance  of  things,  he  was  wiser  in  his  own 
day  than  we  should  probably  be  in  our  judgment 
now.  It  was  of  more  moment  to  the  world,  just  as  it 
was  of  more  account  to  him,  that  the  invisible  foun- 
dation should  be  made  sure,  than  that  this  or  that 
should  be  the  working-out  of  any  political  event. 

The  work  to  be  done  was  to  build  up  a  new  Rome 
on  the  ruins  of  the  old.  And,  for  this  new  structure, 
his  one  task  was  to  care  for  the  foundations.  These 
were  laid  in  men's  loyalty  and  belief  and  hope,  and 
must  be  constructed  patiently  alike  in  the  storm  or 
calm  of  outward  events.  You  look  through  his  en- 
tire correspondence,  page  by  page ;  and  you  find  not 
an  allusion  to  events  that  even  at  this  distance  shed 
such  a  powerful  and  lurid  glare  on  the  history  of  the 
time.  On  the  other  hand,  his  letters  f  are  full  of  the 
official  detail  of  his  work  as  spiritual  Head  of  the 
Christian  world,  which  lie  fully  believed  himself  to 
be.  On  this  one  point  there  is  never  a  word  of  con- 
cession, never  an  instant  of  hesitation.  We  have  no 
business,  just  now,  with  his  arguments,  only  with  his 
convictions.    Whether  Peter  was  chief  of  the  apostles 

*  Greenwood's  Cathedra  Petri,  Vol.  I.  pp.  426,  467. 

t  Of  which  about  one  hundred  and  eighty  are  preserved. 


HIS   ECCLESIASTICAL   THEORY.  155 

in  any  official  sense  ;  whether  he  ever  came  to  Eome 
and  lived  as  bishop  of  the  church  there ;  whether  his 
primacy,  if  he  had  it,  descended  to  his  successors, — 
all  these  questions,  of  fruitful  controversy  once,  are 
nothing  to  the  point.  What  wre  see  is,  that  the 
Church  at  Eome  —  partly  by  its  metropolitan  rank, 
partly  by  the  transfer  of  the  court  to  Constantinople, 
partly  by  the  distractions  of  Italy,  partly  by  the 
steadily  aggressive  policy  of  its  abler  heads  —  had 
come  to  have  a  dignity  and  authority  that  gradually 
supplanted  those  of  every  other ;  and  that,  in  the 
great  ruin  that  had  overtaken  the  Eoman  state,  men 
came  to  lean  more  on  its  visible  and  compacted 
strength.  We  also  see,  or  seem  to  see,  that  this 
power,  so  disciplined  and  firm,  was  the  one  thing 
capable  of  saving  to  the  world  its  old  treasures  of 
thought  and  its  traditions  of  social  order.  What  is 
now  our  best  judgment  of  the  time  was  then  its  in- 
spiration and  its  faith,  and  gave  it  courage  to  abide 
the  bursting  of  the  storm  that  was  close  upon  it. 

The  strong  heart  of  Leo  held  absolutely  to  that 
conviction,  whether  as  statesman  or  as  Christian 
believer  is  of  little  concern  to  us.  In  his  singleness 
of  purpose,  he  probably  could  not  have  drawn  any 
nice  line  between  his  policy  and  his  creed.  His  argu- 
ments will  not  count  for  much  with  us.  It  is  hardly 
too  much  to  say  that  he  does  not  stoop  to  argument. 
His  tone  is  of  assertion,  instruction,  authority,  com- 
mand. Several  of  his  letters  are  treatises  of  some 
length  on  disputed  points  :  the  famous  one  to  Fla- 
vian, which  guided  the  decisions  of  the  Council  at 
Chalcedon  (451),  would  make  a  pamphlet  of  about 


156  LEO   THE   GREAT. 

twenty  pages.  Nowhere  in  any  of  them  does  he  hint 
that  an  opponent  is  to  be  met  as  an  equal,  on  the  fair 
level  of  debate.  The  assumed  grounds  of  his  opinion 
he  is  willing  to  explain ;  but  the  opinion  itself  you 
must  take,  whether  you  accept  the  argument  or  not. 

In  that  particular  debate,  Eutyches  had  appealed 
to  Leo,  and  had  gained  at  first  his  cordial  support. 
But  when  the  point  came  to  be  better  known,  above 
all,  when  the  robber-synod  at  Ephesus  showed  in 
what  a  temper  it  was  held,  then  Leo  was  perfectly 
uncompromising  and  distinct.  He  demanded  at  first 
that  the  Council  should  be  held  in  Italy ;  and,  when 
that  could  not  be  had,  wrote  his  letter  of  instructions, 
taking  at  once  the  tone  not  of  debater  but  of  judge. 
His  dictum  has  been  the  test  phrase  of  orthodoxy 
ever  since  :  that  both  natures,  divine  and  human, 
were  blended,  in  their  completeness,  in  the  one  Per- 
son who  was  thus  perfect  God  and  perfect  man ; 
and  his  little  treatise,  in  this  letter,  is  to  this  day  as 
authentic  and  clear  a  statement  as  has  been  made,  or 
perhaps  can  be  made,  of  what,  by  the  very  terms  of 
it,  is  absolute  and  unintelligible  mystery.*  We  may 
think  as  we  will  of  the  proposition.  We  may  find  in 
it,  if  we  will,  an  important  metaphysical  truth,  where 
we  fail  to  see  a  dogmatic  one.  But  at  least  we  may 
recognize  its  value  as  a  symbol,  or  watchword,  in  the 
crisis  that  wTas  fast  coming  on.  It  is  interesting  to 
remember  that  the  decision  at  Chalcedon  was  in  the 

*  Its  terms  are,  Salvd  igitur  jiroprietate  utriusque  naturae  [et  sub- 
stantia], et  in  unam  coeunte  personam  (in  the  Greek,  els  *v  -Kpoaunrov 
awiovo-qs).  —  Leo  I.,  Ep.  xxviii.  This  is  (I  think)  the  first  for- 
mal use  of  TTpocrwTrov,  corresponding  to  the  Latin  persona,  and  is 
apparently  a  concession  to  Leo's  influence  and  authority. 


THE   DESTINY   OF  ROME.  157 

very  year  of  the  great  battle  of  Chalons*  which 
broke  the  power  of  the  Huns,  and  saved  Europe  from 
the  fate  of  Asia  ;  and  that,  of  these  two  events,  Leo, 
the  greatest  man  of  the  time,  seems  utterly  and 
calmly  careless  of  the  one,  while  his  whole  heart  is 
full,  and  all  his  passion  roused,  by  the  subtile  point 
of  transcendental  theology  determined  in  the  other. 

The  permanent  and  real  work  of  Leo's  life  was  to 
found  a  new  Borne  on  the  ruins  of  the  old.  At  this 
distance  of  time,  it  is  easy  for  us  to  see  how  far 
greater  was  the  splendor,  and  vaster  the  sway,  of  the 
spiritual  empire  that  followed  him,  than  of  the  politi- 
cal dominion  that  went  before.  But,  in  that  age  of 
ruin,  it  is  very  striking  to  see  how  distinctly  it  was 
already  prefigured  to  his  mind.  We  must  assume 
that  he,  as  a  native  Eoman,  had  in  his  heart  all  the 
proud  and  passionate  loyalty  which  for  so  many  ages 
had  made  Home's  unbroken  faith  in  her  imperial 
destiny.  And  perhaps  it  was  in  part  the  obstinate 
resolve  that  that  faith  should  not  be  defeated,  which 
made  him  so  clear-eyed  as  to  the  coming  glories  of 
the  Eternal  City.  It  is  best  to  hear  his  expression  of 
it  in  his  own  words,  which  I  copy  from  a  sermon 
delivered  on  the  memorial  day  of  St.  Peter  and  St. 
Paul. 

"These  are  the  men,  O  Rome,  through  whom  the 
gospel  of  Christ  hath  shone  upon  thee.  These  are  thy 
holy  fathers  and  thy  true  shepherds,  who  have  set  thee 
in  heavenly  kingdoms  far  more  gloriously  than  those 
who  laid  the  first  foundations  of  thy  walls.     These  are 

*  Or  rather,  of  Troyes,  some  fifty  miles  farther  south.  See 
Hodgkin's  "  Italy  and  her  Invaders,"  Vol.  II.  p.  138. 


158  LEO   THE   GREAT. 

they  who  have  advanced  thee  to  such  glory  that,  as  a 
holy  nation,  a  chosen  people,  a  priestly  and  royal  state, 
thou  shouldst  hold  a  broader  sway  in  faith  of  God  than 
in  dominion  of  the  earth.  Whatever  the  victories  that 
have  borne  forward  thy  right  of  empire  by  land  and  sea, 
3'et  less  the  toil  of  war  has  yielded  thee  than  the  peace 
of  Christ.  For  the  good,  -just,  and  almighty  God,  who 
never  denied  his  mercy  to  human  kind,  and  always,  by 
his  abundant  benefits,  has  instructed  all  men  in  the 
knowledge  of  himself,  by  a  more  secret  counsel  and  a 
deeper  love  took  pity  on  the  willing  blindness  of  wan- 
derers and  their  proneness  to  evil,  by  sending  his  Word, 
equal  and  co-eternal  with  himself.  And,  that  the  fruit 
of  this  unspeakable  grace  might  be  shed  through  all  the 
earth,  he  with  divine  foresight  prepared  the  Roman 
realm,  whose  growth  was  carried  to  limits  that  bor- 
dered upon  the  universe  of  all  nations  on  every  side. 
But  this  city,  knowing  not  the  Author  of  her  greatness, 
while  queen  of  almost  every  nation,  was  slave  to  the 
errors  of  every  people,  and  seemed  to  herself  to  have 
attained  great  faith,  because  she  had  spurned  no  false- 
hood. And  so,  the  more  strictly  she  was  held  in  bonds 
by  Satan,  so  much  the  more  marvellously  she  is  set  free 
by  Christ." 

These  words  we  read,  not  as  the  complacent  homily 
by  which  it  is  so  easy  to  glorify  a  victory  already 
won,  but  as  the  strong  faith  that  is  itself  the  pledge 
of  victory  in  advance.  It  was  in  part  an  educated 
belief  with  Leo,  and  in  part  the  clear  pointing  of  the 
time.  No  blame  to  him,  if  it  was  also  in  part  his 
secular  and  patriotic  creed.  To  a  Roman  it  was  the 
right  thing  that  Rome  should  be  sovereign  of  the 
earth.     To  a  pious  and  strong-hearted  Roman  of  that 


HIS   POLICY.  159 

age,  the  one  thing  needful  at  once  and  possible  was, 
that  in  her  continued  empire  Rome  should  be  a  spirit- 
ual sovereign,  and  not  a  temporal  one.  Rome,  said 
Jornandes,  no  longer  held  the  world  by  arms,  but  by 
men's  imaginations. 

This  faith,  this  resolute  purpose  of  Leo,  it  cannot 
be  denied  that  be  carried  into  effect  by  diplomacy 
and  state-craft,  as  well  as  preached  it  for  a  religious 
creed.  In  judging  this,  again,  it  is  best  to  see  the 
situation  as  it  really  was.  Leo  was  shrewd,  wary, 
persistent,  determined,  watchful  of  opportunity,  after 
the  manner  of  statesmen.  A  large  part  of  his  policy 
must  be  judged  by  the  ethics  of  statesmanship,  rather 
than  by  the  humbler  private  moralities.  In  this, 
however,  two  things  may  be  claimed  for  him :  that 
the  motive  of  his  game  was  nobler,  and  the  stake  he 
played  for  higher,  than  that  of  the  mere  statesman ; 
and  that,  while  his  policy  was  often  stern  and  over- 
bearing, it  was  never  treacherous  or  cruel.  As  for 
personal  ambition,  or  selfish  designs,  as  that  phrase  is 
commonly  understood,  it  does  not  appear  that  a 
shadow  of  such  a  motive  passed  upon  his  mind,  or  a 
shadow  of  such  a  suspicion  ever  rested  upon  his  name. 
Assuming  the  one  end  and  aim  of  his  policy  which 
he  kept  in  view,  all  the  acts  of  it  were  the  natural, 
straightforward,  resolute  carrying  out  of  it.  That  he 
meant  to  assert  the  spiritual  sovereignty  of  Rome,  and 
the  official  supremacy  of  the  post  he  held,  explains 
itself.  That,  with  his  high  temper,  he  would  have 
yielded  to  it  in  another  man's  hands  the  simple 
homage  he  claimed  for  it  in  his  own,  one  may  possi- 
bly doubt.     But,  standing  where  he  did,  and  seeing 


160  LEO  THE  GREAT. 

what  he  did,  he  believed  in  it  with  all  his  heart ;  and 
it  was  well  for  the  world  that  he  did  so  believe  in  it. 

Thus  he  was  on  the  watch  from  the  first  for  an 
occasion  to  put  his  theory  into  force.  The  occasion 
was  quickly  found :  a  strong  man,  in  fact,  never  has 
to  wait  long  for  it.  Two  hundred  years  before,  under 
Tertullian  and  Cyprian,  the  churches  in  Africa  had 
been,  in  strength  and  eloquence,  the  worthy  pioneers 
of  Latin  Christianity.  Later  still,  under  Augustine, 
their  fame  had  far  surpassed  that  of  Eome,  in  every- 
thing except  the  accident  of  their  provincial  situation 
But  they  had  been  torn  and  rent  by  the  schism  of  the 
Donatists.  Augustine  himself  had  spent  a  great  part 
of  his  strength  in  incessant  controversy ;  and  he  was 
now  fifteen  years  dead,  and  Vandal  buccaneers  lording 
it  over  the  whole  Barbary  coast.  The  church  at  Eome, 
and  Leo,  its  vigorous  head,  made  the  natural  court  of 
appeal  for  the  afflicted  province ;  and  so  the  first  stone 
was  laid  of  that  strong  confederation  which  afterwards 
grew  to  be  the  Catholic  Empire  of  the  West. 

Again,  the  opportunity  came,  half  by  accident,  that 
led  to  official  correspondence  with  the  eastern  coasts 
of  the  Adriatic,  —  an  opportunity  which  Leo  was  not 
slow  to  improve.  He  always  assumes  his  authority, 
never  defends  it ;  advises,  urges,  instructs,  and  in  fact 
exercises  on  the  soil  of  Greece  the  jurisdiction  which 
the  feebler  Patriarch  of  Constantinople,  leaning  on 
court  influence,  and  jealous  of  a  claim  he  had  no 
strength  to  enforce,  found  daily  slipping  from  his 
hand.  This  advantage  Leo  pushed,  as  we  have  seen, 
to  the  extent  of  directing,  almost  (it  would  seem)  of 
dictating,  the  counsels  at  Chalcedon.    He  failed,  how- 


HILARY   OF  ARLES.  161 

ever,  in  the  one  point  of  securing  the  formal  admis- 
sion by  the  East  of  the  claims  of  Eome.  The  Council 
was  careful  to  declare  —  in  its  celebrated  twenty- 
eighth  canon,  which  he  was  equally  careful  to  disown 
—  that  Constantinople,  the  metropolis  and  official 
capital  of  Christendom,  held  equal  rank.  And  to  that 
declaration  the  East  still  adheres  to-day. 

The  critical  test,  however,  of  Leo's  theory  was  in 
Gaul.  That  firmly  allied  with  Eome,  the  West  at 
least  was  secure.  Now  the  churches  of  Southern 
Gaul  were  about  as  old  as  that  of  Eome ;  claimed,  in- 
deed, to  have  been  founded  by  Paul  himself.*  They 
had  been  famous  and  strong  from  the  very  earliest 
time.  Their  martyr  record  was  of  the  noblest ;  their 
Irenseus,  in  the  second  century,  of  far  more  weight 
than  any  Eoman  name  ;  their  St.  Martin,  in  the  fourth, 
the  purest  and  bravest  of  all  who  had  carried  the 
faith  into  the  barbarous  West.  Besides,  that  country 
was  earliest  of  all,  under  the  old  Eoman  dominion, 
to  feel  conscious  of  the  germs  of  a  new  nationality. 
"  Eldest  daughter  of  Eome  "  the  flatteries  of  Catholic 
pontiffs  have  delighted  in  calling  her ;  but  a  daughter 
that  long  and  often  has  contested  vigorously  the 
mother's  will. 

Hilary  of  Aries,  for  some  ecclesiastical  offence, 
had  displaced  one  of  his  bishops,  Celidonius,  who 
promptly  appealed  to  Eome.  Leo,  as  promptly,  with- 
out waiting  to  inquire,  but  eager  to  assert  his  juris- 
diction, restored  Celidonius  to  his  place.     Hilary,  of 

*  One  of  the  principal  ones,  at  Treves,  by  the  widow's  son  of 
Nain,  who  had  been  miraculously  raised,  a  second  time,  by  the 
laying  on  of  Peter's  staff. 

K 


162  LEO   THE   GREAT. 

ruder  temper  than  Leo  and  at  least  as  resolute,  gray- 
haired  but  vigorous,  at  once  took  his  staff,  and  went 
upon  foot,  in  midwinter,*  all  the  way  to  Rome.  He 
was  sure  that  Leo  did  not  understand  the  merits  of 
the  case.  He  would  not  be  put  off,  he  said,  with  the 
smooth  compliments  that  greeted  him,  and  pushed 
his  plea  so  hotly  that  Leo  arrested  him  for  contempt, 
and  put  him  under  guard.  He  broke  bounds,  how- 
ever, and  went  back  the  way  he  came,  noway  ready 
to  submit,  —  deprived,  meanwhile,  of  a  large  part  of 
the  region  he  presided  in.  Still  Leo's  victory  might 
have  hung  doubtful,  but  that  he  prudently  obtained 
a  decree  from  the  worthless  Valentinian  III.  (445), 
who  ruled  in  a  sort  of  phantom  sovereignty  at  Ra- 
venna,  declaring  not  only  the  subjection  of  Gaul  and 
of  every  other  province  to  the  Pope  at  Rome,  but  that 
"  to  all  men,  whatever  the  authority  of  the  Apostolic 
See  has  ordained,  or  does,  or  shall  ordain,  shall  be  as 
law."  f 

Those  which  I  have  recited  were  the  most  notable 
occasions  on  which  Leo  asserted  and  maintained  the 
spiritual  authority  of  Rome.  They  were  the  critical 
acts  of  his  sovereignty ;  and  they  have  sketched,  in 
vigorous  outline,  the  pretensions  of  the  Pontificate, 
which  have  been  continually  reasserted,  in  precisely 
the  same  direction  and  general  terms,  down  to  our 
day.  Nothing  on  earth  has  been  so  consistent  or  per- 
sistent as  this  ecclesiastical  policy  of  Rome.     What- 

*  On  this  journey  we  may  assume  that  he  departed  from  his 
usual  winter  custom  of  going  barefoot. 

t  See  the  terms  of  the  Decree  in  Greenwood's  Cathedra  Petri, 
Vol.  I.  pp.  353,  351. 


GROWTH   OF   THE  PAPACY.  163 

ever  we  may  think  about  it  now,  it  had  its  uses  and 
necessities  once  ;  and  we  shall  see  them  the  more 
plainly  as  we  get  deeper  into  the  shadow  of  barbarian 
times,  and  then  into  the  twilight  of  Feudalism.  Just 
now,  it  is  our  business  to  see  only  how  they  lay  in 
the  mind  and  shaped  the  policy  of  one  strong,  reso- 
lute, and  sagacious  man. 

Even  that,  however,  dealing  as  it  did  with  great 
things,  would  not  have  been  what  it  was  in  the  his- 
tory of  human  events,  except  for  the  incessant,  un- 
tiring vigilance  in  little  things.  How  little  these 
were,  yet  how  important  in  his  eyes,  —  the  ordering 
of  a  festival,  the  discipline  of  a  churchman,  the  ex- 
plaining of  a  phrase,  the  reiteration  of  a  counsel  or  a 
command,  —  one  can  see  only  in  the  details  of  his 
homilies  and  his  correspondence.  In  these,  we  watch 
as  it  were  the  process  by  which  that  enormous  fabric 
of  ecclesiastical  power  was  woven,  thread  by  thread, 
till  it  seemed  to  wrap  inseparably,  like  the  membrane 
of  a  living  body,  every  limb  and  interior  organ  of  the 
great  structure  of  mediaeval  civilization. 

We  see  the  process ;  but  we  see  it  only  in  one  cor- 
ner of  its  working,  and  for  one  moment  of  time.  The 
same  thing  was  going  on  incessantly,  untiringly,  over 
many  a  thousand  miles,  for  many  a  hundred  years, 
still  following  the  form  and  pattern  that  had  been 
traced  by  that  strong  hand,  still  appealing  to  and 
guided  by  the  very  maxims  and  phrases  that  we  have 
heard  from  that  resolute  voice.  The  unity  of  counsel 
in  multiplicity  of  operations,  which  we  call  Catholi- 
cism, —  apparently  as  strong  to-day,  in  its  own  sphere, 
as  a  thousand  years  ago,  and  as  able  to  send  its  ser- 


164  LEO   THE  GREAT. 

vants  to  their  post  in  hamlet  or  forest  as  then,  as  little 
afraid  as  then  of  sword  or  fire  or  torture  or  starva- 
tion, that  great  wonder  of  human  history,  the  disci- 
pline of  a  vast  population,  like  an  army  loyal  to  one 
flag  and  obedient  to  one  word  of  command,  —  has 
been  the  task  of  many  ages  and  many  men.  In  the 
fifteen  centuries  of  its  existence  it  has  produced  enor- 
mous good  and  enormous  evil.  But  it  is  justice  to 
the  name  of  Leo  to  say  that  the  ideal  good,  without 
the  inseparable  evil,  was  what  lay  in  his  heart  and 
made  his  strength ;  and  to  recognize  him  as  the  one 
man,  in  that  day  of  terror  and  despair,  who  was  wise 
enough  and  strong  enough  to  do  its  necessary  task. 


VIII. 
MONASTICISM  AS  A  MORAL  FORCE. 

IT  is  hard  for  us  to  estimate  fairly  the  value  of  a 
thing  so  utterly  alien  from  the  modern  mind  as 
the  monastic  spirit,  with  the  ascetic  practices  and  the 
religious  forms  that  grew  out  of  it.  To  judge  it  out 
of  hand  is  easy  enough  from  the  modern  point  of 
view,  which  puts  in  relief  its  corruptions  and  absurd- 
ities, and  contrasts  it  with  what  we  know  as  the  help- 
ful and  saving  forces  of  society  now.  It  is  also  easy 
to  recount  the  services  of  the  monastic  orders,  for 
several  centuries,  in  the  shelter  of  the  weak,  the 
preservation  of  letters,  the  building  up  of  intelligent 
and  free  industry.  What  is  not  so  easy  is  to  appre- 
ciate the  strength  and  fervor  of  the  monastic  passion 
itself,  as  a  moral  force,  and  its  value  as  a  factor  in 
history. 

A  series  of  careful  studies,  or  else  of  brilliant  and 
impressive  pictures,  by  such  writers  as  Guizot,  Monta- 
lembert,  and  Charles  Kingsley,  aids  very  much  to 
bring  this  matter  within  the  range  of  our  modern 
sympathy  and  understanding.  For  my  present  pur- 
pose, however,  I  must  avoid  all  these  attractive 
fields  of  illustration.  I  must  also  avoid  for  the 
most  part  that  great,  strange  field  of  Eastern  ascet- 
icism, with  the  exhibition  it  offers,  sometimes  tender 


166  MONASTICISM   AS   A   MORAL   FORCE. 

and  pathetic,  often  wild  and  repulsive,  of  cenobitic  and 
eremitic  life  in  the  region  that  gave  it  birth.  My 
object  is  simply  to  see  how  it  entered  as  an  element 
into  the  larger  life  that  was  unfolding  towards  the 
West. 

As  early  as  the  time  of  Athanasins  and  Augus- 
tine, monasticism  had  already  powerfully  affected  the 
imagination  of  Western  Europe,  and  led  the  way  to 
some  emulation  of  its  fantastic  austerities  there.*  It 
was  not,  however,  till  early  in  the  sixth  century  that 
it  was  definitely  embodied  and  organized  as  a  social 
force  by  St.  Benedict,  whose  death,  in  543,  left  his 
monastery  of  Monte  Casino  the  acknowledged  type 
and  head  of  the  Western  monastic  life.  At  this  date, 
then,  it  is  to  be  recognized  as  a  distinct  and  powerful 
element  in  the  new  civilization. 

My  view  of  the  subject,  accordingly,  will  be  by 
way  of  retrospect,  and  very  simple.  I  wish  to  speak 
of  Monasticism  purely  as  a  moral  force,  —  the  motive 
it  sprang  from,  and  the  way  in  which  it  acted  on 
men,  mainly  through  their  imagination  and  moral 
sympathy. 

First  of  all,  we  must  go  back  a  little,  and  remember 
that  Christianity  very  early  showed  itself  as  a  hostile 
and  aggressive  force,  in  sharp  antagonism  to  the 
beliefs  and  customs  prevailing  in  the  world.  This 
antagonistic  attitude  implies  several  things  :  deep 
conviction  both  of  personal  guilt  and  of  existing  evil, 
as  in  Paul ;  a  motive  widely  apart  from  philosophic 

*  The  monastery  of  St.  Honoratus,  founded  about  400,  in  the 
island  of  Lerins  (or  St.  Honore),  off  the  southern  coast  of  France, 
was  the  chief  head-quarters  of  early  Western  monasticism. 


THE   FORLORN   HOPE.  167 

speculation,  as  shown  in  the  controversy  against  the 
Gnostics ;  a  symbol  of  faith  accepted  with  absolute 
loyalty,  to  fight  under  as  a  banner,  as  with  the  creed 
of  Athanasius  ;  a  definite  appointing  of  the  field  of 
conflict  in  the  individual  conscience  or  conviction, 
as  with  Augustine  ;  a  powerful  visible  organization, 
acting  as  one,  like  an  army,  under  its  official  head, 
which  post  of  authority  had  been  claimed  and  main- 
tained by  Leo.  Each  of  these  has  already  been  sepa- 
rately considered. 

But,  for  its  greatest  efficiency,  a  fighting  force  needs 
one  other  thing.  It  needs  its  outposts,  its  skirmish- 
ers, its  corps  of  desperate  fighters  ;  men  absolutely 
reckless  of  all  fears,  and  bound  by  no  interests  or 
hopes  except  such  as  identify  them  with  the  strength 
and  life  of  the  army  itself ;  volunteers,  who  make  its 
advance  guard  in  battle  and  its  forlorn  hope  at  a 
crisis  ;  a  body  of  reserve,  to  whom  life  itself  is  a  thing 
utterly  indifferent  in  comparison  with  the  honor  of 
the  service,  and  all  other  affection  thin  and  cold 
except  that  which  makes  it  their  one  pride  to  fight 
under  the  flag,  and  their  joy  to  die  for  it.  From 
Marathon  down  to  Plevna,  it  is  safe  to  say  that  no 
army  has  been  great,  and  no  military  dominion 
strong,  that  could  not  count  on  the  absolute  devotion 
of  such  a  reserve  force,  —  a  body  to  which  danger 
itself  has  an  irresistible  fascination,  whose  one  mas- 
ter-passion is  warrior  zeal,  whose  hot  desire  is  for  the 
fiery  delight  of  combat. 

To  say,  then,  that  the  Church  was  victorious  in  the 
war  it  undertook,  is  to  say  that  it  had  at  its  command 
such  a  body  of  enthusiasts,  a  body  of  absolute  loyalty 


168  MONASTICISM   AS   A   MOEAL  FORCE. 

and  fanatic  zeal ;  whose  zeal,  indeed,  might  outrun 
prudence  and  turn  to  frenzy,  yet  for  that  very  reason 
could  be  counted  on  when  the  battle  would  be  hope- 
less without  just  that  aid,  —  the  sharp  edge  of  attack, 
the  obstinate  heroism  of  defence.  In  fact,  the  Church 
had  two  such  bodies  of  reserve  :  one  for  the  time  of 
persecution  in  the  conflict  against  Paganism,  —  the 
Martyrs ;  one  for  the  time  of  organized  conquest 
that  followed,  in  the  conflict  against  Barbarism, — 
the  Monastics.  It  is  necessary  to  say  a  word  on  the 
motive  common  to  them  both. 

We  must  not  forget  —  at  the  earlier  stage,  espe- 
cially, of  the  conflict  we  are  considering  —  that  Chris- 
tianity presents  itself  to  us  in  the  form  of  a  moral 
reaction,  or  protest,  against  the  gross  inhumanities 
and  corruptions  of  Pagan  society.  This  reaction  would 
be  mild  with  some  natures,  violent  with  others.  So 
much  we  may  easily  understand.  But  what  it  was, 
precisely,  that  it  reacted  against,  requires  some  knowl- 
edge of  obscure  authorities  and  some  hardihood  of 
speech  to  show.  We  cannot  always,  it  may  be,  trust 
the  eager  invective  of  Christian  apologists  like  Tertul- 
lian  ;  though  where  he  refers  to  plain  and  well-known 
fact,  we  have  no  right  to  deny  his  witness.  But  we 
have  a  right  to  judge  the  Pagan  world  out  of  its  own 
mouth;  and  then  there  are  testimonies  written  be- 
tween the  lines  of  classic  authors  —  such  testimonies, 
for  instance,  as  the  frescos  at  Pompeii  —  which  help 
us  to  an  understanding  of  the  darker  facts.  In  Hor- 
ace we  have,  mainly,  an  easy  epicureanism,  smooth 
and  fair,  and  only  beginning  to  be  withered  at  the 
core ;  in  Juvenal,  a  stoicism  no  longer  humane,  but 


THE   ROMAN   SPECTACLES.  169 

bitter  and   austere;   in   Petronius,  who  was   Nero's 
friend,  a  cynicism  nakedly  revolting. 

These,  however,  are  only  hints  of  Roman  manners, 
and  perhaps  may  be  overcharged  :  it  would  be  easy  to 
make  a  picture  just  as  black  of  a  Christian  capital 
to-day.  But  there  are  two  points  of  public  morality 
at  that  period,  which  we  can  quite  understand,  and 
which  to  the  most  placid  temper  now  are  full  of  hor- 
ror :  its  brutal  cruelty,  and  its  beastly  shamelessness. 
Unless  we  do  know  these,  we  cannot  understand  the 
violence,  even  fury,  of  the  recoil  against  them.  We 
look  at  the  statue  of  the  dying  gladiator,  "  butchered 
to  make  a  Roman  holiday,"  and  we  cannot  well  avoid 
a  thrill  of  human  pity.  What  have  we  to  say,  then, 
that  the  wise  and  merciful  Trajan,  for  whose  salvation 
Gregory  prayed,  remembering  his  patient  kindness  to 
a  widow  suppliant,  made  the  amphitheatre  reek  with 
the  blood  of  ten  thousand  such,  to  grace  one  holiday  ? 
Wild  beasts,  we  are  told,  were  often  lacking  in  the 
vast  numbers  needed  to  glut  the  Roman  thirst  for 
blood ;  but  human  victims,  captives  of  war,  were  never 
wanting. 

This  is  but  an  item  of  the  charge.  It  is  hard  for 
us  to  understand  or  forgive  the  brutality  of  a  Spanish 
bull-fight,  where  dainty  ladies  applaud,  or  give  the 
signal  for  the  blow.  The  Roman  mob  — men  and 
women,  noble  and  base  —  looked  on  with  the  same 
eager  lust  of  blood,  when  the  wild  bull  gored  or  the 
famished  tiger  tore  the  delicate  side  of  some  modest 
trembling  Christian  girl,  set  naked  in  the  pit  before 
that  gazing  multitude,  or  else  tangled  in  transparent 
nets.     Three   times   Blandina  was  thus   exposed   at 


170  MONASTICISM  AS  A   MORAL  FORCE. 

Vienna,  in  Gaul,  till  a  barbarian  in  mercy  pierced  her 
breast  with  a  sword.  Perpetua  and  Felicitas,  in 
Carthage,  were  allowed  out  of  pure  horror  to  wrap 
themselves  in  mantles,  before  the  gladiator  finally 
despatched  them  with  his  "  stroke  of  grace."  These 
were  mere  girls,  maidens  or  young  wives,  on  the 
edge  of  womanhood,  innocent,  beautiful. 

Eeligious  frenzy,  perhaps,  made  these  horrors  possi- 
ble. But  the  blood-spoilt  crowd  of  the  amphitheatre 
needed  no  such  motive  of  a  heated  fanaticism.  To 
satisfy  the  lust  of  the  eye,  a  drama  representing  the 
death  of  Hercules  on  Mount  (Eta  was  not  complete 
without  a  robust  captive  bound  and  burned  on  the 
funeral  pile,  whose  yells  and  writhings  might  coun- 
terfeit those  death-agonies.  "  We  have  seen  it,"  says 
Tertullian.  And,  with  still  beastlier  ferocity,  in  the 
masks  and  mummeries  of  the  Eoman  stage,  the  muti- 
lations, rapes,  and  debaucheries,  that  stain  the  corrupt 
mythology  of  Greece,  were  with  a  horrible  realism 
presented  nakedly  before  the  public  eye.* 

These  hints  will  probably  be  enough  to  show  what, 
in  some  of  its  more  shocking  forms,  it  was  that  the 
martyr  church  had  to  protest  against.  Nothing,  it  is 
plain,  except  the  martyr  spirit,  in  its  most  vehement 
and  (if  you  will)  fanatic  form  would  have  borne  the 
battle  or  gained  the  victory.  I  say  nothing  and  I 
know  nothing  about  the  frequency  of  these  spectacles. 
It  is  enough  to  know  that  they  were  possible,  and  that 

*  The  better  known  authorities  for  these  statements  are  Sue- 
tonius, Martial,  and  Tertullian.  Other  authorities  and  details  will 
be  found  in  Ozanam's  Civilisation  au  Quatrieme  Siecle.  See  also 
Kenan's  recent  "  English  Conferences,"  and  his  Antechrist,  ch.  vii 


THE  CHRISTIAN  MARTYRS.  171 

they  are  what  the  world  was  forever  delivered  from 
in  the  triumph  of  Christianity*  Along  with  the 
vivid  picture  given  of  these  horrors  in  his  "  Anti- 
christ," Kenan  tells  us  of  the  contagion  of  the  martyr 
spirit,  —  how  eagerly  not  only  hardy  fanatics,  but 
modest  matron  and  maiden,  pressed  toward  the  con- 
summation of  that  awful  sacrifice,  just  as  volunteers 
press  to  the  most  hazardous  post  in  battle  or  siege ; 
and  how  the  flame  of  that  great  passion  burned  away 
all  lesser  thoughts  of  affection,  duty,  and  shame. 

Or  take  the  following,  from  one  of  the  earlier  mar- 
tyrologies.  "My  father,"  says  Perpetua,  "came  from 
the  city,  wasted  with  anxiety,  to  prevent  me ;  and  he 
said,  '  Have  pity,  my  daughter,  on  my  gray  hairs ; 
have  pity  on  thy  father,  if  he  is  worthy  the  name  of 
father.'  And  so  saying,  he  kissed  my  hands  in  his 
fondness,  and  threw  himself  at  my  feet,  calling  me 
in  his  tears  no  longer  daughter,  but  lady.  And  I  was 
grieved  for  the  gray  hairs  of  my  father,  because  he 
only,  of  all  our  family,  did  not  rejoice  in  my  martyr- 
dom. "  It  is  difficult  for  us  to  take  in  the  hardness  of 
this  young  mother,  at  once  to  her  father  and  her  babe. 
It  is  more  shocking  still  to  think  that  to  them  the 
fiery  or  bloody  death  was  an  escape  from  ignominy 
which  to  them  was  far  more  dreadful.  Eusebius  tells 
of  a  mother  who  esteemed  it  a  happy  chance  to  drown 
herself  with  her  three  daughters,  rather  than  trust  the 
mercy  of  their  jailer ;  and  there  is  hardly  a  plea  on 

*  Doubtless  the  Spanish  bull-fights  are  almost  as  brutal,  and 
the  autos  dafe  of  the  Inquisition  were,  as  a  form  of  human  sacri- 
fice, still  more  cruel.  Still,  these  last  appealed  only  to  the  pity 
and  terror  of  beholders,  not  to  their  beastlier  passions. 


172  MONASTICISM  AS   A   MORAL  FORCE. 

record  more  piteous  in  its  suggestion,  than  where 
Augustine  argues  that,  by  brutal  treatment  in  their 
prison,  Christian  maidens  had  not  lost  their  honor  in 
the  sight  of  God. 

The  extraordinary  romance  of  St.  Thekla,  which  we 
may  count  as  the  earliest  Christian  novel,  is  quite  pos- 
sibly founded  upon  fact.  She  is  a  young  lady  of  high 
birth,  who  innocently  and  unconsciously  —  perhaps 
without  the  writer's  consciousness  either  —  falls  (as 
we  should  say)  in  love  with  the  Apostle  Paul.  Cast 
off  by  her  mother  because  she  will  not  accept  the  hus- 
band provided  for  her,  she  travels  from  place  to  place 
as  a  Christian  missionary,  is  exposed  in  the  theatre  to 
lions,  who  fight  with  each  other  instead,  till  both  are 
killed ;  the  people  then  take  sudden  pity  on  her ;  and 
thus,  miraculously  saved,  she  finds  refuge  in  a  her- 
mitage, where  she  lives  a  long  life  of  pious  solitude. 
Thus  a  single  life  serves  as  link  between  the  martyr 
age  and  the  age  of  monastic  asceticism  ;  and  the  same 
spirit  is  the  inspiration  of  both. 

In  their  most  strongly  marked  features,  however,  it 
must  be  said  that  they  belong  to  two  different  periods. 
The  martyr  age  expired  when  Christianity  came  to 
the  throne  with  Constantine;  asceticism  was  most 
fervent,  and  its  haunts  most  crowded,  in  the  time  im- 
mediately following.  One,  in  fact,  blends  insensibly 
into  the  other.  The  eager,  perhaps  frantic  temper, 
trained  through  whole  generations  up  to  the  heat  of 
martyr  zeal,  was  not  content  to  repose  in  the  tame 
quiet  of  a  religious  peace.  The  solitude,  the  austerity, 
the  self-inflicted  torment,  the  denial  of  human  kind- 
ness, which  might  have  been  a  refuge  or  a  compromise 


THE   ASCETIC   MOTIVE.  173 

at  a  time  of  real  danger,  became  the  accepted  way  of 
working  to  that  exalted  temper. 

What  had  been  the  passionate  phase  of  a  reaction 
against  pagan  brutality,  was  now  an  intolerant  and 
hot  protest  against  the  love  of  ease  and  the  lingering 
sensuality  that  Paganism  left  behind.  This  intol- 
erant protest  had  flashed  out  once  or  twice  before,  in 
the  hot  anger  and  contempt  felt  towards  those  who 
had  "lapsed"  under  the  storm  of  persecution,  whom 
it  was  held  infamous,  with  whatever  penance,  to  take 
back  to  the  bosom  of  the  faithful ;  and  so  had  arisen 
the  Novatian  schism  and  the  schism  of  the  Donatists,* 
and  the  fury  of  the  Circumcellions,  who  rushed  in  a 
mad  way  upon  their  death,  courting  martyrdom, — 
disorders  whose  tradition  vexed  the  Church  for  more 
than  three  centuries.  The  same  temper,  now  that 
Christianity  was  in  the  ascendant,  showed  itself  in 
the  many  forms  of  ascetic  and  monastic  life. 

It  is  not  necessary  to  dwell  here  on  the  tempting 
features  of  anecdote  and  adventure  which  illustrate 
that  way  of  life.  Two  points  only  we  have  to  consider: 
its  power  as  a  motive  in  the  mind  of  the  ascetics 
themselves ;  and  its  power  as  a  moral  force  among 
men,  through  imagination,  sympathy,  or  emulation. 

As  to  the  former,  I  do  not  think  wTe  are  content  with 
any  theory  of  motives  to  account  for  asceticism,  out- 
side the  moral  quality  of  asceticism  itself,  and  its 
strange  fascination  to  an  order  of  feeling  always  pow- 
erful in  human  nature.  It  is  easy,  but  it  is  delusive, 
to  say  that  men  deliberately  set  themselves  by  aus- 
terities and  penance  to  win  for  themselves  peculiar 

*  Well  called  by  Mr.  Hodgkin  "  the  Caraeronians  of  Aiiica." 


174  MONASTICISM   AS   A   MORAL   FORCE. 

glories  or  joys  in  paradise.  Possibly  they  may  give 
that  for  their  own  account  of  it,  so  deceiving  them- 
selves. But  no  profit-and-loss  calculation  like  that 
ever  inspired  that  passion,  of  whose  insanest  extreme 
we  have  so  wonderful  a  picture  in  Tennyson's  "  St. 
Simeon  Stylites  "  :  — 

"  Bethink  thee,  Lord!  while  thou  and  all  the  saints 
Enjoy  themselves  in  heaven,  and  men  on  earth 
House  in  the  shade  of  comfortable  roofs, 
Sit  with  their  wives  by  fires,  eat  wholesome  food, 
And  wear  warm  clothes,  and  even  beasts  have^talls,  — 
I,  'tween  the  spring  and  downfall  of  the  light, 
Bow  down  one  thousand  and  two  hundred  times, 
To  Christ,  the  Virgin  Mother,  and  the  saints; 
Or  in  the  night,  after  a  little  sleep, 
I  wake:  the  chill  stars  sparkle;  I  am  wet 
With  drenching  dews,  or  stiff  in  the  crackling  frost; 
I  wear  an  undressed  goat-skin  on  my  back ; 
A  grazing  iron  collar  grinds  my  neck ; 
And  in  my  weak  lean  arms  I  lift  the  cross , 
And  strive  and  wrestle  with  thee  till  I  die. 
O  mercy,  mercy!  wash  away  my  sin!  " 

In  these  strange  outbursts,  which  echo  the  very 
passion  and  fervor  of  ascetic  life,  we  find  something 
far  deeper  than  the  balanced  reckoning  of  chances  be- 
tween paradise  and  hell.  We  find,  in  the  first  place, 
a  conviction  of  moral  un  worthiness  morbidly  intense  ; 
and  in  the  next  place,  the  flame  of  a  peculiar  passion, 
that  feeds  on  everything  as  fuel  that  it  can  lay  hold 
upon. 

Of  the  first,  the  intense  conviction  of  sin,  it  may 
perhaps  be  said  to  be,  in  one  or  another  form,  the 
source  of  all  the  moral  power  existing  and  operative 
among  men.     It  is  not  worth  while  to  analyze  it  here, 


SINFULNESS   OF   THE   FLESH.  175 

where  it  simply  takes  on  an  extravagant,  fantastic, 
unfamiliar  form.  It  becomes  to  us  simply  a  morbid 
phenomenon,  one  manifestation  of  a  force  known  to 
us  in  many  other  calmer  and  (it  may  be)  more  in- 
structive ways. 

Only,  a  word  should  be  said  of  the  root  from  which 
it  grew,  in  a  notion  of  the  essential  iniquity  of  all 
pleasures  of  sense,  —  an  intense  recoil  from  the  ex- 
treme sensualism  of  ancient  life.  "In  me,"  says 
Paul,  "  that  is,  in  my  flesh,  dwelleth  no  good  thing."  * 
The  ascetic  life,  says  Sozomen,  is  "no  compromise 
between  virtue  and  vice."  This  opinion  of  the  radi- 
cally evil  nature  of  matter,  and  in  especial  the  matter 
of  which  our  bodies  are  composed,  must  be  presumed 
in  all  our  knowledge  of  the  subject. 

By  a  certain  morbid  logic,  too,  sensations  repulsive 
to  the  sense  were  thought  a  fit  penance,  and  directly 
pleasing  to  God.  Thus,  to  take  a  few  instances, 
chiefly  from  the  admiring  Greek  historians  :  —  St. 
Anthony  would  scarce  suffer  clean  water  to  touch  his 
feet  or  hands.  St.  Arsenius  would  change  the  water  he 
used  in  weaving  rushes  but  once  a  year.  St.  Hilarion 
built  himself  a  hut  too  small  to  let  him  stand  upright  or 
lie  at  length.  St.  Hallas  touched  no  bread  for  seventy 
years,  contenting  himself  with  roots  and  herbs.     St. 

*  This  is  quaintly  shown  in  the  following  formula  of  confes- 
sion :  "  I  confess  all  the  sins  of  my  body,  —  of  my  skin,  of  my  flesh, 
of  my  bones  and  sinews,  of  my  veins  and  cartilages,  of  my  tongue 
and  lips,  of  my  jaws,  teeth,  and  hair,  of  my  marrow,  and  any  other 
part  whatsoever,  whether  it  be  soft  or  hard,  wet  or  dry."  No  peti- 
tion is  more  frequent,  in  some  of  the  older  rituals,  than  that  God 
would  be  pleased  to  accept  our  leanness  and  mortification  of  the 
flesh. 


176  MONASTICISM   AS   A   MORAL   FORCE. 

Senoch  walled  himself  to  the  neck  in  a  narrow  cir- 
cuit, too  small  to  let  him  move  or  sit,  and  lived  there 
for  years.  St.  Wulfilaich  was  hardly  persuaded  to 
quit  the  pillar  elevation  in  the  north  of  Gaul,  where 
he  stood  barefoot,  summer  and  winter,  till  his  nails 
dropped  off  with  the  bitter  cold.*  Some  wore  heavy 
crosses,  chains,  or  iron  bands  ;  some  had  no  covering 
but  their  long,  unwashed,  and  shaggy  hair,  living  in 
dens  the  life  of  beasts.  The  brawny  St.  Moses,  to  tire 
down  his  sinful  muscular  strength,  stood  praying  every 
night  for  six  years,  without  sleep.  St.  Stephen  kept 
on  weaving  baskets,  while  the  surgeons  were  ampu- 
tating a  limb.  These  idle  heroisms  are  the  voice  of 
the  ascetic  conscience,  morbidly  acute ;  but  they  are 
also,  like  the  training  of  our  athletes,  a  test  of  what 
may  be  done  in  battle  or  endured  in  the  siege. 

Of  what  may  be  called  the  ascetic  passion,  however, 
something  remains  to  be  added.  It  is  a  very  shallow 
theory  of  life,  to  say  that  the  main  motive,  with  most 
men,  is  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  —  at  least  in  any 
sense  in  which  happiness  can  be  defined  to  the  under- 
standing, or  chosen  by  the  judgment.  It  is  hardly  an 
exaggeration,  on  the  other  hand,  to  say  that  many 
persons  set  their  hearts  on  misery,  and  pursue  it  with 
an  obstinacy  that  we  might  call  insane.  I  do  not 
think,  for  example,  that  the  ascetic  passion  of  a  her- 
mit or  a  monk  is  different  at  bottom  or  harder  to  un- 
derstand —  except  for  such  moral  quality  as  may  be 
in  it  —  than  the  pining,  wretched,  eager  self-denial  of 

*  These  practices,  said  his  unflattering  adviser,  may  be  fit  for 
the  great  saints  and  holy  men  of  the  East ;  but  a  poor  ignorant 
barbarian  like  you  should  not  aspire  to  such  high  things. 


THE  HABIT   OF   SACRIFICE.  177 

a  rich  miser,  the  very  type  that  takes  its  name  from 
"misery."  And  those  argue  weakly  with  human 
nature  as  it  is,  who  appeal  first  to  men's  desire  of  com- 
fort and  selfish  ease.  Hardihood  and  adventure,  the 
joy  of  conflict,  defiance  of  danger,  generous  self-aban- 
donment, are  each  and  all  more  powerful  motives  in 
real  life,  —  not  perhaps  for  weak  characters,  but  at  any 
rate  for  strong  ones.  The  six  hundred  who  rode  "  into 
the  jaws  of  death,"  facing  loaded  cannon,  do  not  show 
it  any  more  plainly  than  those  other  hundreds  who 
went  the  other  day  to  risk  their  lives  in  pestilential 
cities  at  the  South;  not  more  plainly  than  the  father 
or  mother,  of  average  conscience  and  self-denial,  who 
submits  with  never  a  thought  to  the  innumerable  priva- 
tions which  define  the  commonest  conditions  of  duty 
or  (it  may  be)  of  indulgence  to  the  child. 

And  so  the  habit  of  self-denial  grows,  till  one  may 
come  to  feel  —  who  has  not  known  such  ?  —  as  if  the 
very  sensation  of  pleasure  itself  were  a  sin.  Occa- 
sionally we  know  of  lives  that  are  literally  made  a 
sacrifice,  not  so  much  to  a  mere  notion  of  duty,  how-, 
ever  morbidly  scrupulous,  as  to  a  mood  of  mind  in 
which  austerity  itself,  and  self-torment,  have  come  to 
take  the  place  of  duty:  not  that  they  are  chosen  freely 
as  being  right,  but  have  grown  into  a  moral  necessity, 
and  so  make  the  men  their  slaves. 

Look  at  the  heart  of  any  such  man,  and  you  find 
that  the  sacrifice,  far  from  being  a  price  weighed  out 
and  duly  paid,  has  come,  by  the  mere  cultivation  of  a 
sense  of  duty,  to  be  a  delight  in  itself,  as  truly  as  the 
enthusiasm  of  adventure  or  the  contempt  of  danger. 
It  is,  indeed,  the  very  business  of  religious  discipline 

8*  L 


178  MONASTICISM   AS    A   MORAL   FORCE. 

to  guide  and  train  what  may  so  come  to  be  a  mighty 
master  passion.  And  we  should  not  fail,  through  any 
shallow  theory  of  pleasure,  to  see  how  prodigious  a 
force  the  Church  enlisted,  when  it  gave  to  what  we 
have  called  the  ascetic  passion  recognition  and  a 
sphere.  The  time  would  soon  come  when  that  great 
force  would  be  needed,  no  longer  for  defence  or  idle 
contemplation,  but  for  active  service. 

That  time  came,  indeed,  in  a  very  dramatic  way. 
In  the  flush  of  his  temporary  triumph  over  Alaric, 
Honorius  had  renewed  at  Eome,  in  404,  the  old 
splendor  of  the  public  games  ;  and,  Christian  as  he 
was,  and  against  the  warm  protest  of  men's  better 
feeling,  brought  his  show  to  a  climax  by  a  combat 
of  gladiators,  a  spectacle  forbidden  long  before  by 
Christian  law.  When  the  sport  was  at  its  height, 
the  monk  Telemachus,  who  had  come  (it  is  said)  all 
the  way  from  Egypt  to  do  it,  threw  himself  into  the 
arena,  between  the  swords  of  the  combatants,  and 
was  crushed  under  a  shower  of  stones  from  the  angry 
mob,  —  "  the  only  monk,"  says  Gibbon,  "  who  died  a 
martyr  in  the  cause  of  humanity."  This  brave  act 
put  a  final  stop  to  the  brutal  sport. 

But  Gibbon's  comment  is  not  true.  Whole  genera- 
tions of  Christian  monks  lived,  and  a  great  many  of 
them  died,  in  cruel  martyrdom,  in  working  out  that 
long  task  by  which  the  barbarian  world  —  less  cor- 
rupt, no  doubt,  than  the  old  Pagan  society,  but  almost 
inconceivable  in  its  ferocity  —  was  brought  into  the 
pale  of  Christian  civilization.  Some  features  and  con- 
ditions of  that  task  we  shall  have  to  consider  at  an- 
other time.     At  present  we  have  to  do  only  with  the 


THE  MONK  AS   MISSIONARY.  179 

way  in  which  this  great  moral  power  was  trained  and 
equipped  to  undertake  it. 

One  feature  of  it,  however,  I  must  mention  here. 
It  is  the  spectacle  that  offers  itself  to  our  imagina- 
tion, as  the  face  of  the  world  slowly  changes,  from  its 
comparatively  orderly  and  familiar  look  in  the  classic 
age,  to  what  it  had  become  when  the  barbarian  hordes 
gave  it  the  wild  and  strange  complexion  it  wore  so 
long.  We  see  the  process  at  a  great  distance ;  and, 
so  seen,  the  features  of  one  age  melt  insensibly  into 
those  of  another,  so  that  it  is  no  hard  thing  to  us  to 
call  the  change  an  unmixed  good.  But  in  the  time 
of  it,  as  we  must  not  forget,  there  were  infinite  details 
of  literally  unspeakable  horror,  —  details  which  you 
find  hints  of  in  Gibbon's  foot-notes,  or  can  read  at 
more  length  in  the  half-barbaric  authorities  he  cites, 
Jornandes,  Liutprand,  Paulus  Diaconus,  and  Gregory 
of  Tours.  Now,  when  that  three  centuries'  storm 
settled  down  upon  the  Western  world,  innumerable 
outposts  were  already  held  by  religious  zealots,  whom 
an  ascetic  fervor  had  scattered  through  Italy  and  Gaul, 
and  along  the  confines  of  Germany,  some  in  solitary 
hermitages,  some  in  bands  and  brotherhoods,  many 
with  a  faith  burning  in  them,  and  a  yearning  for  the 
souls  of  those  wild  barbarians,  in  whom  they  saw 
—  as  Salvian  did  —  more  hopeful  subjects  of  Christ 
than  in  the  corrupt  and  degenerate  population  they 
had  turned  their  backs  upon. 

Some  of  their  religious  retreats  were  the  refuge  of 
cowards,  —  so  it  was  charged  ;  of  men  who  had  cast 
off  all  love  of  their  country,  who  had  lost  the  sense 
of  honor  and  public  duty,  who  dared  not  look  the 


180  MONASTICISM   AS   A  MORAL   FORCE. 

times  in  the  face.*  Most  likely.  Among  those  who 
simply  sought  religious  solitude  or  religious  fellow- 
ship in  those  retreats,  it  would  be  hard  to  draw  the 
line  between  pure  cowardice  and  genuine  despair  of 
the  perishing  world  they  forsook,  —  despair  that  would 
settle  upon  many  a  mind,  doubtless,  as  if  the  end  of 
all  things  were  really  at  hand,  and  the  only  remain- 
ing duty  were  to  make  one's  peace  with  God,  as  on  a 
death-bed. 

But  not  so  with  those  who  undertook  such  tasks  as 
the  time  made  possible.  Many,  probably  most  of 
those  who  are  worthily  recorded  as  the  saints  —  that 
is,  the  moral  heroes  —  of  that  evil  time,  were  men 
trained  in  monastic  discipline,  hardened  to  service 
by  the  interior  conflicts  which  that  discipline  im- 
plied. 

And  we  have  not  to  forget,  either,  the  immense 
effect  of  these  austerities,  of  the  strange  humanity 
and  tenderness  often  joined  with  them,  of  the  strange 
vision  and  the  new  ideal  of  sanctity,  offered  before 
the  eyes  and  powerfully  affecting  the  imagination  of 
the  rude,  cruel,  unsophisticated  invaders.  The  more 
familiar  accounts  of  St.  Martin  in  France  and  St. 
Severinus  in  South  Germany  illustrate  vividly  this 
moral  reaction. 

In  general,  Catholic  writers  do  completer  justice 
than  we  do  to  this  unfamiliar  but  most  noble  phase 
of  religious  heroism.  It  is  hard  for  a  Protestant  to 
forget  the  strong  repugnance  which  monastic  life 
called  out  in  the  time  of  its  degeneracy.     But  we 

*  The  ground  taken  by  Valens  (about  375),  in  his  conscription 
of  monks  for  civil  or  military  duty. 


SAINT   BENEDICT.  181 

are  not  concerned  here  with  those  later  scandals  and 
controversies.  We  have  only  to  see  and  understand 
a  very  genuine  exhibition  of  moral  power  among  men 
to  whom  that  way  was  the  best  they  knew,  and  at  a 
time  when  no  better  service  could  possibly  be  given 
to  the  world.  Some  of  these  lives  commend  them- 
selves easily  to  our  judgment :  as  of  Cassiodorus,  the 
minister  and  secretary  of  Theodoric  ;  and  of  Fortu- 
natus,  a  genuine  man  of  letters,  whose  verses,  in- 
scribed to  that  gentle  recluse  queen  Badegoncla,  or  to 
his  friend  Gregory  of  Tours,  make  the  closing  pages 
in  the  great  body  of  classic  Latin  poetry.*  But  hun- 
dreds and  thousands  of  them  passed  away  unknown, 
and  only  added  each  its  drop  or  its  rill  to  the  vast 
stream  which  was  widening  into  the  new  civilization. 
Of  others,  again,  it  must  be  said  that  their  asceticism 
was  sheer  idle  pretence,  and  slid  into  intoxication  and 
madness.  The  perils  of  that  way  of  life  became  quite 
plain,  even  at  this  time ;  and  they  needed  a  discipline 
very  sharp  and  severe  to  keep  them  in  some  sort  of 
check.  The  discipline  which  prevailed  in  Europe  for 
many  generations,  vigorous  and  wholesome,  was  that 
of  St.  Benedict,  established  during  the  prosperous  rule 
of  the  Goth  Theodoric.  The  anecdotes  of  his  life  we 
need  not  dwell  on  :  how  as  a  child  of  twelve,  with 
the  connivance  of  his  maid,  he  ran  away  and  hid  in  a 
cave  from  his  vicious  schoolfellows,  till  he  was  given 
up  for  dead  ;  how,  to  deliver  himself  once  for  all  from 
"the  demon  of  the  flesh,"  he  stripped  and  rolled 
among  thorns  till  his  skin  was  lacerated  from  head 
to  foot ;  how,  as  head  of  his  monastery,  he  ruled  his 
*  See  below,  "  The  Christian  Schools." 


182  MONASTICISM   AS   A   MORAL   FORCE. 

monks  so  sharply  that  they  turned  against  him  and 
tried  to  poison  him  in  a  bowl  of  wine  ;  how  his  fame 
for  sanctity  grew,  till  he  was  obliged  to  flee  again  to 
the  rocky  retreat  of  Monte  Casino,  where  his  most 
famous  of  monastic  houses  continues  an  object  of  pil- 
grimage to  this  day.* 

Here  he  established  his  firm  code  of  discipline  on 
the  three-fold  vow,  not  to  be  taken  till  after  due  pro- 
bation and  the  severest  tests  of  resolution,  of  Poverty, 
Chastity,  and  Obedience.  The  first  meant  simple  and 
absolute  community  of  goods  :  the  religious  house 
might  and  afterwards  did  revel  in  enormous  wealth  ; 
but  the  individual  monk  owned  nothing.  We  shall 
compare  this  presently  with  the  later  Mendicant 
Orders,  so  that  here  we  have  only  to  notice  the 
pledge  it  gave  of  absolute  devotion  to  the  common 
interest,  and  the  enormous  associated  strength  of  the 
brotherhood.  The  vow  of  Chastity  at  once  forbade 
all  family  ties,  and  put  upon  the  conscience  the  task 
through   life   of   keeping   np   the   ascetic   discipline 

*  There  is  a  pretty  story  of  the  occasion  of  this  retreat.  A  bevy 
of  gay  girls  from  Rome  —  whom  no  doubt  the  grim  ascetics  took 
to  be  emissaries  of  the  Devil  —  went  out  "for  a  lark  "  one  day  to 
visit  and  perhaps  cheer  their  dull  abode  ;  and  tried,  with  all  co- 
quetries and  blandishments,  to  coax  them  back  to  the  city,  and  to 
carnal  ways.  In  horror  at  what  might  possibly  come  of  it,  Bene- 
dict made  all  haste  to  the  rudest  spot  he  could  find  among  the 
rugged  spurs  of  the  hills. 

It  was  on  a  like  occasion  that  an  aged  monk  was  observed  to 
look  very  earnestly  at  the  sauciest  and  most  fascinating  of  the 
group ;  and  when  his  companions  asked  him  why,  replied,  "  Be- 
cause it  is  revealed  to  me  that  she  shall  judge  us  all."  Within  a 
short  time,  in  fact,  she  became  a  penitent,  and  passed  her  life  in  the 
austerest  sanctity.  For  Benedict's  miracles,  see  Migne's  Patrologia, 
cxlix.  965. 


THE  VOW   OF  OBEDIENCE.  183 

which  had  originated  that  mode  of  life.  "VVe  shall 
see  its  immense  consequences  hereafter,  when  under 
Hildebrand  the  monastic  spirit  gained  complete  rule 
in  the  Church,  and  engaged  in  its  sharpest-fought 
battle  against  human  nature. 

For  the  present,  then,  I  have  but  a  word  to  say  of 
the  vow  of  Obedience.  It  was  in  this  that  the  West- 
ern or  Benedictine  discipline  differed  most  widely 
from  the  ascetic  life  of  the  East,  which  (in  its  degen- 
eracy at  least)  aimed  only  at  piety  and  maceration  ; 
and  it  was  in  this  that  it  rendered  its  essential  ser- 
vice to  the  modern  world.  For  obedience,  in  the 
rigidly  practical  rule  of  Benedict,  meant  steady,  gen- 
uine, useful  work.  "Labor  are  est  or  are"  became  the 
monkish  chime.  Seven  hours  of  manual  labor  were 
required  daily,  besides  study  in  the  afternoon.  The 
old  and  feeble,  who  could  do  nothing  else,  were  set  to 
copy  manuscripts  ;  and  so  saved  to  the  world  not 
only  a  host  of  religious  works,  but  whole  libraries  of 
ancient  classics.  The  toil  of  the  Benedictines  has 
become  a  proverb  of  literary  industry.  They  had 
abundant  leisure  for  it.  One  monk  is  said  to  have 
spent  a  lifetime  illuminating  a  single  letter.  Im- 
mense results  came  of  this  organized  industry.  It 
rescued  labor  itself  from  the  degradation  of  its  old 
servile  memories,  made  it  intelligent,  skilful,  and  free, 
as  well  as  a  religious  duty.  There  were  no  such 
estates  in  Europe,  nowhere  so  thrifty  farming  or  so 
tasteful  gardening,  as  the  monasteries  had  to  show. 
It  was  the  monks  who  were  clearers  of  the  forest, 
drainers  of  the  marsh,  frontiersmen,  pioneers  of  civil- 
ization,  founders   of   more   than   half  the  towns  of 


184  MONASTICISM   AS   A   MORAL   FORCE. 

France.  They  steadily  recruited,  through  times  of  in- 
conceivable peril,  those  armies  of  missionary-martyrs, 
by  which  the  barbarian  world  was  tamed  and  trained 
to  a  rude  civilization. 

The  evils  of  monastic  life  are  plain  to  see  :  its 
enormous  seeming  waste  of  moral  force,  shed  like 
showers  on  the  bare  sand  of  the  desert ;  the  wild  and 
ignorant  fanaticism  or  religious  madness  it  often  ran 
into ;  its  hardening  of  the  heart  in  the  selfish  seek- 
ing for  salvation,  so  that  the  natural  affections  and 
humanities  were  crushed,  and  the  monks  became  in 
due  time  the  lit  and  merciless  agents  of  the  Inqui- 
sition ;  the  temptation  to  indulge  indolence,  hypoc- 
risy, and  spiritual  pride,  with  secret  and  abominable 
vices  demanding  periodical  reform.  The  memory  of 
such  things  makes  us  content  that  we  shall  never 
know  it  any  more.  Still,  it  would  not  have  had  its 
opportunity  of  evil,  but  for  the  immense  service  it 
rendered  at  a  critical  period,  when  old  things  were 
passing  away,  and  new  foundations  must  be  laid  in 
the  absolute  courage,  the  denial  of  self-interest,  the 
strenuous  virtue,  the  loyal  obedience,  which  make  the 
ideal  of  that  way  of  life  ;  when  not  science,  strength, 
and  skill,  but  poverty,  hardship,  and  self-denial  were 
the  power  that  overcame  the  world. 


IX. 
CHRISTIANITY  IN   THE  EAST, 

THE  main  stream  of  Christian  civilization,  as  it 
affects  the  great  events  of  history  and  as  it  in- 
terests us  in  particular,  follows  a  westward  course, 
and  is  bounded  for  a  thousand  years  within  the 
limits  that  contain  the  Catholic  Empire  of  the  Mid- 
dle Age.  The  separation  of  East  and  West  was 
slowly  coming  about  for  at  least  three  centuries, 
before  it  became  definite  and  final  in  the  controver- 
sies of  the  ninth  century ;  and  the  parting  of  the 
Christian  world  into  two  jealous  and  hostile  frag- 
ments (879)  lasted  through  many  a  peril  that  assailed 
them  both  alike,  till  one  was  swallowed  up  in  the 
conquests  of  the  Turk,  and  the  other  rent  by  the  great 
Protestant  schism,  with  its  innumerable  sects. 

There  is  something  of  pathos  in  calling  to  mind 
that  the  most  obstinate  motive  of  a  separation  involv- 
ing such  tremendous  historical  consequences  was  the 
persistence  of  the  West  in  holding  that  the  Holy 
Ghost  proceeds  not  from  the  Father  only,  but  also  from 
the  Son,  —  to  us  a  pure  piece  of  unintelligible  meta- 
physics, or  else  the  statement  of  a  very  simple  moral 
fact ;  and  that,  on  the  very  eve  of  the  ferocious  assault 
in  which  Constantinople  fell,  when  terms  of  union 
had  been  with  difficulty  negotiated  at  Florence  to 


186  CHRISTIANITY   IN   THE   EAST. 

secure  a  Christian  league  against  the  infidel  (1438), 
these  terms  were  repudiated  by  the  fanatic  sectaries 
of  the  East,  who  chose  the  risk  of  Ottoman  slavery 
rather  than  accept  the  hated  symbol  of  Western 
heresy. 

But  we  have  to  deal  at  present  not  with  these  criti- 
cal events  of  history  so  much  as  with  certain  charac- 
teristics that  mark  the  contrast  of  the  two ;  and  with 
one  or  two  phases  of  the  Oriental  Church  that  show 
the  position  it  holds  in  Christian  history. 

The  contrast  I  speak  of  is  exactly  indicated,  first, 
by  the  division-line  between  the  two  languages,  Greek 
and  Latin,  in  which  the  symbols  of  faith  were  re- 
spectively set  forth.  Greek  lends  itself  easily  to 
metaphysical  discussions  and  nice  logical  distinctions, 
which  Latin  could  but  imperfectly  follow,  at  least  till 
it  was  tortured  to  metaphysical  uses  by  the  School- 
men. The  Greeks  complained  that  the  language  of 
their  formulae  could  not  be  adequately  rendered  in 
another  tongue.*  It  is  clear  that,  if  the  meaning  of 
the  Christian  symbol,  much  more  the  salvation  that 
comes  of  actual  belief,  turns  on  the  hair-breadth  dis- 

*  Thus  the  word  hypostasis  (to  take  a  very  familiar  case),  which 
is  used  to  express  the  distinctions  in  the  Trinity,  corresponds  ety- 
mologically  to  the  Latin  substantia,  "substance";  but  this  word 
means  exactly  what  the  theologians  did  not  wish  to  say,  and  so 
they  chose  the  word  persona  instead  (literally  mask),  which  we 
very  inadequately  render  "person,"  —  really  meaning  the  part,  or 
character,  acted  in  a  play,  as  in  our  phrase  dramatis  -personal.  Thus 
the  metaphysical  terms  oho'ia,  (essentia),  inroaraa-is  (substantia),  and 
Trpoaooiroy  (persona)  are  more  or  less  interchangeable,  and  give  rise 
to  endless  discussion.  According  to  Gregory  of  Nyssa,  what  oixria 
is  to  the  class,  that  virSo-Taais  is  to  the  individual.  We  find  this 
discussion  going  on,  brisk  as  ever,  in  Peter  Lombard  (about  1160). 


CONTRASTS    OF   EAST   AND   WEST.  187 

tinctions  which  can  hardly  be  stated  in  words,  and 
are  untranslatable  at  best,  there  is  absolutely  no  end 
of  controversy.  Leo  the  Great  did  wisely  to  cnt  the 
knot  by  laying  down  his  own  hard-and-fast  definition, 
which  contented  the  West  then,  and  does  so  to  this 
day ;  while  the  East  wrecked  itself  helplessly  on  the 
successive  sharp  points  that  turned  up  in  the  crooked 
channel  of  dispute,  till  it  seemed  to  drift  helplessly 
on  a  sea  of  metaphysics. 

Again,  the  West  had  a  vigorous  independent  life 
of  its  own,  —  political,  municipal,  ecclesiastical,  —  of 
which  Leo  had  the  genius  to  seize  the  full  advantage ; 
while  church  life  in  the  East  was  absolutely  over- 
shadowed by  the  imperial  despotism,  under  which,  as 
in  the  shelter  of  a  great  forest,  it  throve  with  a  cer- 
tain pining,  sickly,  and  distorted  life  of  its  own.  Not 
that  passion  was  wanting  to  it,  or  a  certain  fanatic, 
even  ferocious  courage  :  the  religious  riots  of  Constan- 
tinople, Antioch,  and  Alexandria  were  bloody  and 
fierce  as  the  old  struggles  of  the  Eoman  forum.  But 
they  were  the  disorderly,  irresponsible  action  of  a 
mob,  that  might  be  crushed  at  any  moment,  and 
periodically  was,  by  the  imperial  military  police,  and 
could  never  develop  any  disciplined  courage  of  its  own. 
Indeed,  how  continually  pressing,  how  closely  haunt- 
ing, the  imperial  despotism  was,  it  is  hard  for  us  to 
conceive,  unless  we  remember  that  it  inherited  the 
cruel  and  despotic  traditions  of  a  Csesar  or  a  Diocle- 
tian ;  and  that  it  left  its  methods  of  merciless  exac- 
tion to  be  adopted  and  followed  up  in  the  unspeakable 
inflictions  of  Oriental  tyranny  to-day.  Ecclesiastical 
rule  was  as  minute,  as  tyrannous,  as  irritating  here,  as 


188  CHRISTIANITY   IN   THE   EAST. 

ever  it  was  in  the  West ;  but,  awed  by  the  nearness 
of  the  .Court,  and  dazzled  by  the  paraphernalia  of 
Empire,  it  never  had  the  free  hand,  even  if  it  had  the 
wise  and  willing  heart,  to  effect  any  one  of  the  great 
tasks  of  civilization. 

What  it  could  do,  however,  it  did.  The  courage 
and  the  devotedness  of  purpose  were  never  wanting. 
Long  lines  of  saints  show  that  the  ecclesiastic  spirit, 
with  its  merits  and  its  faults,  was  quite  as  fervent  as 
in  the  West.  It  had,  in  fact,  a  quality  of  its  own, 
which  commands  a  genuine  admiration.  Looking  at 
its  better  side,  we  seem  to  see  in  it  a  sweetness  of 
piety,  a  gentleness  of  temper,  a  single-hearted  moral 
fervor,  a  purely  religious  courage,  a  capacity  of  warm 
and  long-abiding  friendship,  an  absence  of  personal 
ambition,  which  are  not  to  be  sure  wanting,  but  are 
less  prominent  traits,  in  the  restless  and  energetic 
Latin  Church.* 

These  qualities  answer  well  to  the  more  dependent 
position  just  spoken  of;  and  maybe  held,  justly,  to 
have  characterized  the  churches  of  Syria,  Greece,  and 
Egypt  to  this  day,  —  where  they  subsist,  insulated, 
helpless,  non-resistant,  disarmed,  under  the  scornful 
tolerance  of  the  Mussulman.  To  these  we  may  add  a 
certain  simplicity  of  living  often  running  into  ascetic 
poverty,  a  clinging  family  life,  a  quickness  of  social 
sympathy,  which  seem  to  be  their  inheritance  from  an 
earlier  phase  of  Christian  life  than  was  transmitted 
to  the  West,  and  which  correspond  with  the  primi- 
tive and  easy  ecclesiastical  code  that  permits,  even 

*  In  fact,  we  are  hardly  conscious  of  them  there,  until  we  come 
to  the  later  and  greater  period  of  the  Religious  Orders. 


PERIODS   OF  INTEREST.  189 

if  it  does  not  require,  the  marriage  of  the  humbler 
clergy. 

These  general  traits  it  is  well  to  bear  in  mind,  in 
studying  the  somewhat  depressed  and  monotonous 
life  of  Eastern  Christendom.  While  they  show  its 
good  side,  they  help  to  remind  us,  also,  of  the  feeble 
executive  force  it  has  always  shown,  the  often  hu- 
miliating attitude  in  the  presence  of  authority,  and 
the  ignorant,  gross,  imbecile  condition  in  which  we 
find  its  lower  clergy  at  this  day  in  Eussia,  as  well  as 
in  Greece  or  Turkey.  The  political  condition  of  the 
East,  too,  from  the  first  Gothic  invasion  clown,  has 
shown  little  else  than  a  succession  of  despotisms,  and 
violent  conquests,  and  wide-spread  miseries,  never 
once  relieved  by  a  show  of  genuine  popular  courage, 
or  a  vigorous  national  life.  The  Byzantine  Empire, 
down  to  its  fall  in  1453,  has  always  been  a  synonyme 
for  indolent  luxury,  gaudy  but  meretricious  splendor, 
pampered  despotism,  political  degeneracy,  and  moral 
decay.  Only  a  few  broad  features  require  our  con- 
sideration now. 

As  belonging  to  our  present  purpose,  there  are 
three  phases  of  this  languid  history,  which  may  de- 
tain our  eye.  These  are,  the  period  immediately  fol- 
lowing the  first  Arian  controversy;  the  reign  of 
Justinian  ;  and  the  Image-Controversy,  with  the  at- 
tending circumstances  that  confirmed  the  separation 
of  East  and  West,  — this  last  preceded  and  followed 
by  the  vast  catastrophe  of  the  Mahometan  invasion. 

I.  The  fervor,  the  sweetness,  and  the  purely  re- 
ligious intrepidity  which  I  have*  spoken  of  as  char- 
acterizing the  Eastern  Church,  are  seen  nowhere  to 


190  CHRISTIANITY   IN   THE   EAST. 

so  great  advantage  as  in  the  group  of  eminent  and 
saintly  men  who  adorn  its  calendar  towards  the  end 
of  the  fourth  century.  There  are  many  other  names 
hardly  less  worthy  ;  but,  for  purposes  of  illustration, 
it  is  enough  to  mention  four,  who  make  a  group 
together. 

Basil  the  Great,  of  Csesarea  (329-379),  eminently 
deserves  to  lead  the  list.  High-minded,  cultivated, 
self-denying,  charitable,  austere,  bold  before  the  face 
of  power,*  writer  of  the  sweetest  homilies  on  Crea- 
tion, Paradise,  and  the  discipline  of  Providence,  he  is 
the  great  organizer  of  eastern  monastic  life.f  Next  is 
his  friend  Gregory  of  Nazianzus  (330-391),  the  elo- 
quent ascetic,  the  personal  antagonist  of  Julian,  the 
vigorous  champion  of  orthodoxy  at  the  capital  (where 
he  raised  it  from  a  despised  sect  to  a  great  popular 
enthusiasm),  the  contented  exile  when  court  intrigues 
drove  him  from  the  city  to  the  harder  penance  of  writ- 
ing odes  and  hymns,  j  Third  is  Gregory  of  Nyssa 
(331-395),  younger  brother  of  Basil,  a  theologian  and 
commentator,  a  hard,  clear,  and  serious  thinker,  a  stu- 
dent of  Greek  philosophy,  whose  treasures  he  would 
gather"  for  Christian  uses,  called  "  father  of  fathers  "  by 
an  admiring  council,  the  reconciler  of  divided  churches, 
the  thoughtful,  gentle-minded  Platonist,  liberal  and 
serene  among  sharp  party  conflicts.  Last  and  most 
eminent  of  all  is  the  bright  name  of  John  Chrysostom 

*  Witness,  especially,  his  intrepid  correspondence  with  his  old 
schoolfellow,  the  Emperor  Julian. 

t  Whose  rules  he  lays  down  in  replies  to  313  Queries. 

J  Luke's  genealogy,  for  instance,  in  hexameters,  and  Matthew's 
in  iambics  ;  besides  the  appalling  chapters  of  Chronicles  and  Num- 
bers, and  a  drama  on  the  death  of  Christ. 


FOUR  GREEK   DIVINES.  191 

(347-407),  preacher  of  the  "golden  lips,"  held  by 
many  to  be  the  greatest  of  all  religious  orators  of  any 
age,  who  would  have  been  made  Bishop  of  Antioch  at 
twenty-three  but  for  his  generous  support  of  Basil ; 
who  as  Patriarch  of  Constantinople  joined  absolute 
simplicity  and  charity  of  living  with  steady  defiance 
of  court  power  and  an  electric  eloquence  that  rings  in 
his  pages  vivid  and  alive  to-clay ;  who  in  perfect 
serenity  and  sweetness  of  soul  blessed  God  for  his 
rod  of  chastisement,  while  he  lay  dying  on  the  road 
under  the  barbarous  cruelty  that  dragged  him  in  age 
and  infirmities  into  banishment. 

In  this  group  of  brilliant  and  saintly  names  we 
notice,  first,  that  they  are  all  near  friends,  and  two 
of  them  brothers  ;  and  next,  their  short  career,  the 
oldest  living  only  to  sixty-three,  while  the  one  who 
passed  into  history  as  "  great "  died  at  fifty.  They  all 
represent  the  very  best  of  those  qualities  which  seem 
the  family  traits,  so  to  speak,  of  Eastern  Christianity. 
It  would  be  hard  to  find,  in  the  writings  of  either  of 
them,  a  trace  of  sectarian  rancor,  or  personal  vindic- 
tiveness,  or  spiritual  pride,  or  dogmatic  bigotry,  or  self- 
ish ambition,  or  vanity  of  letters.  All  were  humble- 
minded  and  devout,  ascetic  in  their  training,  austere 
judges  of  themselves,  utterly  submissive  to  the  Di- 
vine will  they  worshipped.  The  strongest  impression 
one  gets  from  their  writings  is  their  absolute  lack  of 
self-reference  or  self-assertion,  and  the  entire  good 
faith  with  which  they  not  only  assume  that  the 
ascetic  life  is  the  true  moral  ideal,  but  make  its  rule 
the  law  of  conscience  for  themselves  —  the  rule  of 
personal  purity  and  rigid  self-denial. 


192  CHRISTIANITY   IN   THE   EAST. 

But  for  a  certain  simplicity  of  courage,  and  a  child- 
like fearlessness,  we  might  possibly  miss  in  them  the 
more  masculine  virtues  we  look  for  in  the  religious 
character.  When  Basil  was  threatened  with  confis- 
cation, imprisonment,  and  death,  his  reply  was,  "  Not 
one  of  these  things  touches  me.  He  who  has  no 
goods  cannot  suffer  any  ]oss.  He  who  is  God's  guest 
cannot  be  an  exile  anywhere.  For  martyrdom  I  am 
unworthy  ;  but  death  is  only  a  friend  to  me,  to  bring 
me  sooner  to  God." 

All  were  lovers  of  nature,  and  lovers  of  what  was 
beautiful  in  Greek  art  and  letters.  Their  writings 
have  all  become  Christian  classics,  and  have  had 
their  share  in  preserving  the  marvellous  vitality  of 
the  Greek  tongue  :  a  vitality  so  great,  that  it  has  not 
only  been  kept  alive  in  the  debased  Bomaic  ;  but  in 
our  own  day  Schliemann,  as  he  tells  us,  has  moved  a 
village  audience  in  Ithaca  to  tears  by  reciting  out  of 
Homer  the  meeting  of  Ulysses  and  Penelope,  while 
Xenophon  and  Demosthenes  are  used  as  reading 
books  in  Athenian  public  schools  to-day.  That  the 
classic  Greek  is  still  so  nearly  the  language  of  the 
people  as  to  be  almost  intelligible,  easily  mastered 
by  a  few  weeks'  study,  and  rather  gaining  upon  the 
modern  in  current  employ,  is  greatly  due  to  its  uses 
as  a  sacred  tongue,  and  to  those  writers  whose  ora- 
tions and  commentaries  have  further  consecrated  it 
to  that  use. 

We  notice,  too,  that  this  era  of  oratorical  splendor 
and  religious  fame  immediately  follows  the  great  con- 
troversy, and  that  it  belongs  wholly  to  the  defenders 
of  what  was  then  called  Orthodoxy.     This  fact  has  a 


JUSTINIAN.  193 

certain  value  in  the  history  of  polemics  as  a  phase  of 
human  thought.  It  shows,  not  that  their  speculation 
was  more  true,  or  their  reasoning  more  honest,  but 
that  they  chose  the  side  which  best  expressed  the 
warmth  of  devoted,  unreasoning,  and  loyal  faith. 

II.  The  nearly  forty  years'  reign  of  Justinian  (527- 
565)  is  very  famous  in  history  for  two  things;  — 
victory  over  the  Vandals  by  Belisarius  and  over  the 
Goths  by  Narses,  which  seemed  likely  to  make  the 
Empire  whole  again  by  reconquest  of  the  West ;  and 
the  codifying  of  Roman  Law,  which  became  a  most 
important  element  in  the  later  civilization.  Besides 
these  wTere  certain  marked  merits  of  administration. 
Justinian,  says  Sismondi,  first  made  economy  a  sci- 
ence, and  systematically  encouraged  industry.  The 
silk-worm  was  brought  by  travelling  monks  from 
India ;  trade  was  carried  as  far  as  China.  The  mag- 
nificent dome  of  Santa  Sophia  testifies  to  this  clay 
how  the  piety  and  splendor  of  the  capital  were  cared 
for  in  the  imperial  policy. 

Justinian  himself  has  only  the  accidental  glory  of 
these  achievements.  His  greatest  general  died  under 
-his  unjust  and  cruel  jealousy  ;  and  his  chief  merit 
is  perhaps  the  steady  and  generous  support  he  gave  to 
the  great  jurists  who  labored  on  the  Code.  He  was 
himself  an  ascetic,  a  scholastic,  and  a  pedant,  "  neither 
beloved  in  his  life,"  says  Gibbon,  "nor  regretted  at 
his  death";  busying  himself  with  theological  disputes, 
in  which  he  showed  neither  a  schoolman's  subtilty 
nor  a  statesman's  skill ;  ruled  by  the  strange,  fascinat- 
ing adventuress  Theodora,  whose  name  is  shaded  with 
the  blackest  ignominy  or  else  the  blackest  calumny, 
9  m 


194  CHRISTIANITY   IN   THE   EAST. 

who  upheld  her  half-way  heresy  in  the  face  of  his 
ostentatious  orthodoxy,  and  left  her  memory  to  the 
mercy  of  bigots  who  never  pardon  or  forget. 

The  brief  revival  which  this  reign  offers  of  impe- 
rial magnificence  is  darkened  by  its  almost  unpar- 
alleled calamities.  War  against  the  barbarian  means 
extermination,  or,  at  its  mildest,  devastation.  The 
Vandal  Gfelimer  surrendered,  when  he  saw  a  morsel 
of  half-burnt  dough  snatched  from  between  his  neph- 
ew's very  teeth  by  a  Moorish  boy,  —  a  type  of  the 
ruin  that  spread  through  Italy  and  Africa.  A  glar- 
ing comet  amid  these  disasters  seemed  the  scourge 
of  God  hung  visibly  in  the  sky.  An  earthquake  de- 
stroyed, it  is  said,  two  hundred  thousand  lives  in  a 
single  city.  A  dreadful  pestilence  (bred,  say  the  an- 
nalists, from  the  bodies  of  reptiles  left  by  a  great 
inundation  of  the  Tiber)  raged  more  than  fifty  years, 
leaving  hardly  a  spot  or  man  untouched.  At  Justin- 
ian's death,  it  has  been  reckoned,  the  population  of  the 
Empire  had  been  diminished  (since  Augustus,  proba- 
bly) by  a  hundred  million  lives. 

The  decision  at  Chalcedon  (451)  had  settled  the 
standard  of  orthodoxy  for  the  West,  but  had  only 
heated  the  jealousies  between  Antioch  and  Alexan- 
dria. The  partisans  of  a  single  nature  in  Christ  never 
failed  to  make  points,  or  split  them,  that  would  make 
against  the  accepted  creed ;  and  numberless  shades  of 
the  "  Monophysite  heresy  "  prevailed,  till  these  flick- 
ering contests  paled  in  the  glare  of  Saracen  invasion. 
A  compromise  —  the  famous  Henoticon  —  carefully 
framed  (482)  to  exclude  the  sharper  lines  of  division, 
had  not  long  satisfied  either  party,  since  each  had  to 


MONOPHYSITE  AND  MONOTHELETE.      195 

sacrifice  the  prominence  of  its  favorite  dogma, 
Justinian,  in  bis  desire  to  propitiate  the  more  hereti- 
cal sect,  published  a  "  confession,"  which  went  as  far 
as  this:  "Whosoever  does  not  confess  that  our  Lord 
Jesus  Christ,  crucified  in  the  flesh,  is  true  God  and 
Lord  of  glory,  and  one  of  the  Holy  Trinity,  let  such  a 
one  be  anathema";  and  declared  the  body  of  Christ 
incorruptible.  They,  on  their  part,  admitted  that, 
while  there  is  in  Christ  but  one  nature,  yet  that 
nature  is  twofold :  their  test  phrase  was,  that  "  God 
was  crucified." 

These,  with  some  obscure  matters  charged  as  heresy 
against  the  Origenists,  were  the  delicate  differences 
to  be  arranged  at  another  Council  in  Constantinople 
(553),  which  willingly  enough  accepted  the  very* 
words  of  the  Emperor's  confession.  But  after  his 
death  dissensions  went  on  widening,  with  admixture 
of  strange  travesties  here  and  there,  that  seemed  to 
make  a  fourth  divinity  of  Mary  "  Mother  of  God,"  till 
all  were  swept  away  in  a  common  ruin  by  the  impla- 
cable storm  of  Islamism.  The  last  attempt  to  recon- 
cile them  was  in  the  compromise  (suggested  633)  that, 
though  there  were  two  natures  in  Christ,  yet  there 
was  only  a  single  will.  This  seemed  to  satisfy  for  a 
time,  but  was  brought  to  an  end  by  the  sixth  great 
Council  (680),  which  established  as  orthodox  the  doc- 
trine of  two  wills.  The  Monotheletes,  including  the 
Emperor  himself,  who  had  proposed  the  compromise, 
were  now  denounced,  and  "  peace,"  says  Gieseler,  drily, 
"  was  thus  restored  to  the  Church." 

This  pitiful  story  seems  fairly  enough  the  logical 
outcome  of  the  attempt  to  stake  man's  faith  on  accu- 


196  CHRISTIANITY   IN   THE   EAST. 

racy  of  belief.  Assuming  that  it  is  to  be  so,  the  nat- 
ural inference  surely  is,  that  no  degree  of  accuracy  can 
be  excessive,  and  no  difference  of  belief  too  small  to 
justify  intolerant  debate.  To  absolute  sceptical  in- 
difference, the  distinction  of  two  natures  and  two 
wills  is  not  more  insignificant  than  the  act  of  casting 
incense  on  a  pagan  chafing-dish, —  the  test  which  had 
determined  many  an  heroic  martyr-death.  One,  how- 
ever, is  a  point  of  speculative  opinion ;  the  other,  how- 
ever slight,  an  act  of  free  choice.  One  deals  with  logic 
merely;  the  other  with  the  conscience,  where  the 
foundation  of  moral  life  is.  One  is  dogmatic  ortho- 
doxy, the  other  is  spiritual  integrity.  The  orthodox 
postulate,  that  lightness  of  belief  is  essential  to  sal- 
vation, could  not  have  been  more  perfectly  carried 
out  to  its  logical  absurdity,  than  in  these  incessant, 
unintelligible,  disastrous  controversies,  that  cost  the 
Eastern  Church  its  last  chance  of  vigorous  life. 

III.  The  third  phase  of  Eastern  Christianity  to  be 
recalled  here  is  the  extraordinary  outburst  of  fanati- 
cism called  the  Image  Controversy,  lasting  more  than 
a  hundred  years,  and  shaking  the  Empire  to  its  cen- 
tre. This  need  not  detain  us  long.  It  broke  out 
something  more  than  a  hundred  years  after  the  furi- 
ous assault  on  Arabian  tribal  idolatry  led  by  Mahomet. 
The  attack  on  Christian  images  began,  in  fact,  with 
the  intolerant  Mussulman  fanaticism  itself,  which  ex- 
pelled all  "  idols "  from  the  churches  where  it  had 
power  through  its  rapid  conquests  in  the  East,  es- 
pecially in  Syria,  to  the  despair  of  Christian  and  the 
vindictive  delight  of  Jew. 

The  Emperor  Leo  III.  (the  Isaurian)  was  the  first 


IMAGE   CONTROVERSY.  197 

"Iconoclast"  of  the  Empire  (718-741).  He  was  a 
man  of  military  vigor,  political  good  sense,  and  reso- 
lute courage,  one  of  the  ablest  and  best  of  Byzantine 
emperors.  Image- worship  had  run  to  a  violent  su- 
perstition, which  worshipped  statues  of  saints  and  mi- 
raculous pictures,  —  such  as  that  of  the  Virgin  Mary 
at  Sozopolis,  whose  hand  flowed  with  balsam,  as  well 
as  the  visible  symbol  of  the  Cross,  at  which  no  one 
scrupled.  Images  were  taken  from  the  churches  by 
command  of  Leo,  and  a  council  called  by  his  successor 
(754)  echoed  in  its  Acts  the  imperial  will,  holding  it 
especially  profane  that  she  who  was  "  literally  and 
truly  Mother  of  God,  higher  than  the  whole  creation, 
visible  or  invisible,"  should  be  represented  by  "a 
figure  out  of  any  sort  of  wood,  or  colors  laid  on  by  a 
workman's  hand." 

It  is  unnecessary  to  tell  the  furious  resistance  to 
such  decrees,  amounting  to  rebellion  and  civil  war ; 
or  how  the  fanaticism  was  fed  by  companies  of  monks, 
and  traded  on  by  interested  churchmen.  By  an  odd 
and  childlike  superstition,  not  only  prayers  were  said 
and  offerings  made  to  painted  images,  and  lighted 
candles  set  before  them ;  but  the  sacred  bread,  "  the 
body  of  the  Lord,"  was  put  in  their  hands,  as  children 
feed  their  dolls,  and  the  color  scraped  from  them  was 
mixed  in  the  cup  of  communion.  Some  councils  or 
synods  were  found  to  sanction  the  custom  of  image- 
worship.  Imperial  edicts  against  it  were  passed  in 
vain.  Silent  toleration  and  persecuting  rigor  were 
tried  in  turn  ;  till,  under  a  second  Theodora  (842),  full 
sanction  of  Church  and  State  was  given  to  the  custom, 
and  a  yearly  festival  was  established  to  celebrate  its 


198  CHRISTIANITY   IX   THE   EAST. 

final  triumph.  What  quaint,  abject,  homely  forms 
the  superstition  took,  is  told  us  by  all  visitors  to 
Oriental  churches  at  the  present  day.  The  dispute 
was  finally  settled  by  the  curious  compromise  which 
permitted  pictures  (or  colored  medallions),  but  not 
images,  while  the  Latin  Church  admits  them  both, 
—  another  rift  of  the  breach  between  East  and  West 
that  went  on  widening  hopelessly.  Since  this  sepa- 
ration,* the  Eastern  Church  drifts  out  of  the  main 
channels  of  history,  and  floats,  in  a  certain  idle  and 
sheltered  way,  in  such  shallows  and  coves  as  the 
floods  of  fanaticism  or  conquest  may  have  spared.  Its 
history  will  not  detain  us  any  longer. 

To  us  the  strange  thing,  the  real  tragedy  in  all 
these  disorders,  —  so  puerile  and  futile  the  cause  of 
them  appears  to  us,  —  is  that  they  were  the  serious 
and  real  interests  of  Eastern  Christians,  while  the 
storm  was  gathering  in  the  South  that  soon  swept 
them  to  horrible  destruction.  We  cannot  watch  with 
their  eyes  the  advancing  tempest,  or  know  how  it 
looked  to  them,  because  their  eyes  were  holden,  not 
to  see  things  as  they  were.  An  infatuation  of  secu- 
rity possessed  them,  I  suppose,  in  the  august  name 
and  traditions  of  the  Empire,  till  the  sweep  of  Ma- 
hometan fanaticism  had  grown  irresistible.  For,  in 
the  year  609,  the  Arab  camel-driver  Mahomet,  in  a 
brooding,  fitful  way  that  we  might  take  for  mania, 
had  begun  to  talk  of  himself  as  a  prophet  of  the  One 

*  This  was  made  final  in  879,  at  a  council  in  Constantinople, 
which  rejected,  —  1.  The  Roman  assertion  of  supremacy  ;  2.  The 
claim  that  Bulgaria  lay  within  the  see  of  Rome;  3.  The  addition 
of  the  phrase  filioque  to  the  Western  creed. 


MAHOMET.  199 

God.  In  622  he  fled  for  his  life  from  Mecca,  and 
began  to  gather  a  force  personally  devoted  to  him. 
In  ten  years  more  he  died,  just  on  the  edge  of  an 
enterprise  that  blazed  out  suddenly,  like  a  conflagra- 
tion. Syria,  Egypt,  Persia,  were  by  650  held  by  the 
Moslem  sword,  and  along  the  confines  of"  the  Empire 
the  Crescent  bore  hard  against  the  Cross. 

I  am  not  to  repeat,  in  ever  so  rapid  outline,  the 
story  of  those  conquests,  or  discuss  again  the  charac- 
ter and  career  of  the  Arabian  prophet.  We  have  only 
to  look,  very  briefly,  at  the  moral  causes  at  work  in 
the  sudden  catastrophe.  By  common  opinion,  Ma- 
homet is  regarded  now  as  more  reformer  than  im- 
postor, as  a  fanatic  if  ever  there  was  one,  partially 
(perhaps)  insane.  At  least  the  frenzy  that  we  call 
madness  is  often  the  most  effective  appeal  to  Oriental 
races,  and  it  was  strong  in  him  at  times.  Still,  it 
was  not  only  vehement  passion,  often  on  the  edge  of 
insanity.  However  distorted,  it  never  quite  lost  the 
glow  of  religious  feeling  and  moral  passion  it  started 
with.  He  is  said  to  have  picked  up  very  early  in 
life  some  crude  notion  of  Christian  doctrine  from  cer- 
tain Ebionitish  sects,  heretical  and  zealously  mono- 
theist ;  while  his  most  indignant  scorn  was  called 
out  by  some  monkish  travesties  of  the  trinity,  already 
alluded  to.  His  career  began  with  a  furious  attack 
on  the  idols  of  the  Arab  Kaabah,  and  this  iconoclastic 
zeal  he  never  abandoned.  Indeed,  among  his  followers 
it  is  as  hot  and  intolerant  to-day  as  it  was  in  the  first 
onslaught  inspired  by  his  voice. 

A  word  of  the  field  where  this  new  fanaticism  took 
root,  and  the  material  on  which  it  fed.     To  the  most 


200  CHRISTIANITY   IN   THE   EAST. 

religious  races  on  earth  Arabia  itself  is  a  holy  land. 
There  is  Mount  Sinai,  its  rugged  summit  scorched  by 
the  visible  presence  of  Jehovah  ;  the  rock,  where  at 
the  stroke  of  Moses  water  gushed  out  for  his  fainting 
people  ;  the  well  Zemzem,  which  the  angel  showed  to 
Hagar  when  Ishmael,  father  of  the  desert  tribes,  was 
dying  of  thirst ;  the  black  stone  of  Mecca,  chief  visi- 
ble object  of  adoration  to  the  faithful,  which  they  say 
fell  from  heaven.  The  Arab,  we  are  told,  claims  a 
license  to  plunder  all  other  tribes  of  men,  in  retalia- 
tion for  Abraham's  casting  off  of  Ishmael.  Whatever 
the  ground  of  it,  the  license  is  one  all  travellers  feel 
to-day. 

On  them,  again,  God  has  bestowed  four  peculiar 
gifts  :  turbans  for  diadems,  tents  for  walls  and  houses, 
swords  for  intrenchments,  and  poems  for  laws.  In 
their  worship  they  allow  no  images  or  pictures : 
"  Thank  God,"  say  they,  "  we  have  originals."  The 
same  enormous  conceit  glorifies  their  Sacred  Book. 
No  mortal  man,  they  think,  unless  inspired,  could 
wield  the  vast  fabric  of  their  language,  swollen  with 
unnumbered  synonymes,  having  eighty  names  for 
honey,  two  hundred  for  a  serpent,  a  thousand  for  a 
sword.  Mahomet  had  never  learned  to  read  or  write  ; 
yet  the  revelations  he  gave  out  from  time  to  time  are 
held  unrivalled  by  all  poets  or  orators  of  that  tongue  : 
"  the  greatest  of  miracles,  equally  stupendous  with 
the  act  of  raising  the  dead,  alone  enough  to  convince 
the  world  of  its  divine  original." 

No  other  creed  has  so  worked  up  into  a  fanatic 
passion  the  obscure  feeling  which  lies  at  the  heart 
of  most  men,  that  their  lives  are  ordered  by  a  Destiny 


STRENGTH   AND   WEAKNESS   OF  ISLAM.  201 

wholly  out  of  their  control.  The  Moslem  faith  teaches 
that  the  day  and  hour  of  each  man's  death  is  written 
down  in  the  book  of  fate.  No  power  can  avert  or 
alter  that.  His  freedom  is  only  to  choose  the 
worthiest  way  to  die.  Those  who  fall  in  battle  would 
have  perished  all  the  same,  about  their  business  or  in 
bed  at  home  ;  but  basely  so,  most  gloriously  now. 
It  is  their  great  privilege  to  have  fallen  so ;  already 
they  are  in  the  joys  of  paradise.  Thus  fatalism  is  not 
the  helpless  spell  upon  the  will  it  might  be  in  a  fee- 
bler race,  but  a  passion  of  absolute  daring.  "  Islam," 
Submission  ;  "  Kismet,"  It  is  so  decreed,  —  are  the 
watchwords  both  of  that  fierce  courage  in  battle  and 
that  helpless  stupor  in  defeat  or  misery,  alike  charac- 
teristic of  the  Moslem  temper. 

Both  the  strength  and  the  impotence  of  Islamism 
consist  in  its  having  drawn  off  all  the  moral  forces  of 
the  nature  into  that  one  channel,  of  a  blind  religious 
frenzy ;  in  its  absolute  scorn  of  all  civilized  arts,  its 
absolute  surrender  to  the  sensual  delights  of  civilized 
luxury.  The  conqueror  Omar  (637)  lay  on  the  stone 
steps  where  beggars  slept ;  the  staff  he  leaned  on  was 
his  bow ;  all  his  equipage,  as  he  rode  his  one  camel  to 
the  shrine  at  Jerusalem  was  a  sack  of  wheat,  a  basket 
of  dates,  a  wooden  platter,  and  a  water-skin.  When 
Mustapha,  ten  and  a  half  centuries  later  (1683),  lay 
in  his  camp  before  Vienna,  it  wTas  with  pavilions  of 
green  silk  and  all  the  luxuries  that  could  be  gathered 
by  an  enormous  army  train,  till  this  insolent  array 
was  swept  back  by  the  splendid  chivalry  of  Sobieski, 
and  Europe  was  saved.  From  that  hour  the  formi- 
dable wave  of  Mahometan  conquest  has  ebbed,  stead- 
9* 


202  CHRISTIANITY   IN    THE   EAST. 

ily  or  fitfully,  till  the  power  which  Luther  thought 
likely  to  bring  the  reign  of  Antichrist  is  hardly 
propped  from  falling  by  Christian  alliances.  England 
and  Eussia,  not  Arabia  or  Turkey,  control  the  desti- 
nies of  the  East. 

But,  in  its  first  fury,  it  had  nearly  extinguished 
the  degenerate  Christian  Empire.  Twice  Constanti- 
nople was  beset  by  an  Arab  fleet,  —  in  668  and  716  ; 
and  twice  it  was  saved  by  the  timely  and  terrible 
defence  of  the  unquenchable  Greek  fire,  —  floods  of 
blazing  petroleum  mixed  with  sulphur  poured  over 
the  surface  of  the  waves.  Meanwhile  the  invasion 
spread  westward,  through  Egypt;  through  the  dis- 
tracted states  of  Xorth  Africa,  where  it  crushed  at 
once  Greek  and  Vandal,  and  both  the  rival  parties  in 
the  Church ;  into  the  Gothic  kingdom  of  Spain,  where 
it  won  almost  the  whole  Peninsula,  but  was  pushed 
back  by  a  religious  passion  equal  to  its  own,  and 
driven  out  at  length  by  Ferdinand  and  Isabella ;  across 
the  Pyrenees  into  France,  where  at  Tours,  in  732,  the 
light  horse  of  Abdelrahman  broke  all  day  long  against 
the  steel-clad  line  of  Charles  Martel,  like  surf  against 
a  belt  of  ice.  The  Arab  host,  when  night  fell,  "  folded 
their  tents  and  silently  stole  away." 

This  set  the  western  limit  of  Saracen  invasion. 
"For,"  says  the  chronicler,  "  as  the  hammer  breaks 
and  bruises  iron  and  steel  and  all  other  metals,  so  did 
Charles  bruise  and  break  in  battle  all  these  foes  and 
strange  nations."  The  Arabs,  as  ever  submissive  to 
their  destiny,  call  that  fatal  field  "  the  martyrs'  pave- 
ment " ;  and  to  this  day,  say  they,  the  sound  is  heard 
which  the  angels  of  heaven  make  in  so  holy  a  place, 
to  call  the  faithful  unto  prayer. 


THE   FAILURE   OF   ISLAM.  203 

And  thus  the  flood,  which  at  one  time  looked  irre- 
sistible, was  beaten  back,  both  in  East  and  West. 
The  great  Saracen  Empire,  which  once  threatened  to 
envelop  the  whole  of  Christendom,  still  touches  it  at 
both  ends  of  its  broken  crescent,  reaching  nearly  half 
way  round  the  Mediterranean.  As  far  as  the  strength 
of  merely  religious  passion  goes,  that  power  was  well 
matched  against  its  antagonist,  and  was  perhaps  even 
its  superior.  But  the  bleak  monotheism  of  Islam,  its 
sombre  fatalism,  its  fanatical  pride,  its  ferocious  cru- 
elty, its  gorgeous  and  fitful  luxury,  never  were  allied 
—  except  for  one  brief  holiday  of  splendor  at  Cor- 
dova —  with  the  great  intellectual  forces,  never  with 
the  sober  and  resolute  temper  and  the  moral  will, 
which  make  religion  deep  and  real,  and  are  alone 
competent  to  the  world's  best  work. 

Mahometanism  broods  upon  its  departed  glories. 
It  keeps  alive,  as  its  one  root  of  strength,  its  blind  and 
intolerant  fanaticism.  It  is  the  creed  of  perhaps  the 
most  recklessly  daring  fighters  in  the  world.  In 
winning  the  inferior  races,  and  training  them  to  a 
fervent  worship  of  its  own  and  a  certain  low  level  of 
culture,  it  has  showm  an  aptness,  skill,  and  zeal  quite 
in  advance  of  any  Christian  missions.  But  science 
it  treats  with  ignorant  scorn.  The  arts  of  modern 
life  it  takes  at  second  hand,  choosing  always  those  of 
mere  luxury  or  else  mere  destruction.  And  so  it  has 
no  hold  upon  the  future,  only  the  memory  of  a  bloody 
and  stormy  past. 


X. 

CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

ONE  of  the  most  familiar  of  religious  images  is 
that  which  figures  the  Christian  movement  as 
a  Warfare.  The  body  of  believers  is  likened  to  an 
Army  —  in  the  temper  of  its  service,  the  aim  of  its 
movement,  the  symbol  of  its  loyalty,  in  its  discipline, 
drill,  and  organization.  A  favorite  Christian  phrase 
has  always  been  "the  Church  militant";  and  many 
illustrations  have  already  shown  what  meaning,  and 
how  much,  lies  in  that  phrase :  that  it  means,  not 
simply  that  the  religious  life  is  a  warfare  to  us  indi- 
vidually, which  in  one  view  it  always  is ;  but  that,  in 
its  largest  sense,  it  is  a  movement  of  conflict  and  an- 
tagonism, against  very  definite  foes,  and  to  certain 
definite  ends.  This  image  we  must  still  keep  in  view 
a  little  longer. 

How  in  its  nobler  sense  that  warfare  was  carried  on 
for  some  centuries,  and  by  what  sort  of  men,  we  have 
seen  already.  We  have  now  to  consider  it,  in  its 
largest  sense  hitherto,  as  an  invasion  and  a  conquest. 
We  are  to  think  of  it  as  a  Campaign,  intricate  in  its 
plan,  wide  in  its  field  of  operations,  long  in  the  carry- 
ing out,  conducted  by  wary  and  skilful  strategy,  and 
brought  to  its  close  with  a  diplomacy  equally  adroit 
and  able.     No  other  terms  than  these  will  fitly  express 


A   THREE   CENTURIES'   CAMPAIGN.  205 

the  intricate  character,  the  mingled  motives,  the  variety 
of  agents,  the  acts  sometimes  heroic  and  then  again 
quite  questionable,  by  which  that  campaign  was  car- 
ried through. 

Indeed,  these  only  express  it  feebly.  For  the  field 
includes  all  Western  Europe,  —  that  is,  the  entire  front 
of  the  advancing  civilization.  The  time  it  covers  is 
three  centuries.  Its  strategy  is  the  steady  policy  of 
the  Church  of  Rome,  administered  by  a  long  succession 
of  able  and  zealous  pontiffs.  Its  agents  are  not  only 
that  great  host  of  devoted  servants,  numbering  many 
thousands,  of  whose  discipline  and  zeal  we  have  seen 
something  already  in  the  monastic  orders ;  they  in- 
clude also  barbarian  chiefs  and  petty  sovereigns,  whose 
policies,  feuds,  and  even  crimes  are,  with  the  heat 
of  fresh  conversion,  put  at  the  service  of  the  Church. 
It  is  of  this  vast  campaign  that  I  am  to  attempt,  not  a 
history,  or  outline,  or  even  sketch,  but  only  to  hint 
the  nature  of  the  forces  that  guided,  impelled,  and 
fought  it. 

The  three  centuries  just  spoken  of  may  be  most 
conveniently  regarded  as  extending  from  the  time  of 
Leo  the  Great,  about  450,  to  the  death  of  St.  Boni- 
face, Apostle  of  the  Germans,  in  755.  Just  midway 
stands  the  remarkable  and  imposing  figure  of  Gregory 
the  Great,  —  sometimes  called  the  last  of  the  Fathers, 
and  the  real  dividing-mark  between  the  ancient  and 
middle  age,  —  who  died  in  604.  He  may  be  held  to 
have  first  distinctly  conceived  this  great  work  from 
the  point  of  view  just  indicated,  and,  more  than  any 
other  man,  to  have  given  it  the  impulse  and  the 
stamp  of  his  powerful  moral  nature.     At  his  noble 


206      CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

personal  character  we  may  glance  briefly  by  and  by. 
At  present,  we  have  simply  to  fix  this  period  of  time 
as  a  whole  as  definitely  as  may  be,  —  its  beginning, 
middle,  and  end.  Its  beginning  corresponds  nearly 
with  the  fall  of  the  Western  Empire ;  its  end  is  a  lit- 
tle before  the  refounding  of  that  Empire  in  the  person 
of  Charlemagne. 

Eecall  now  those  words  of  Leo,  in  which  he  recites 
the  glory  God  had  bestowed  on  Rome  in  making  it 
the  seat  of  military  empire,  as  a  preparation  for  the 
greater  glory  that  would  belong  to  it  as  head  of  a 
spiritual  dominion  broad  as  the  earth  itself.  Those 
words  may  serve  as  a  key  to  the  movement  we  are 
about  to  consider,  the  Christian  conquest  of  the  bar- 
barian nations. 

But  it  may  be  worth  while  to  reflect  a  moment  on 
the  amazing  realization  of  them  which  we  have  before 
our  eyes  at  the  end  of  more  than  fourteen  centuries. 
Imperial  Borne  never  had  at  its  command  so  vast  a 
number  of  subjects,  nor  such  absolute  devotion,  nor  such 
diplomatic  skill,  nor  such  willing  obedience,  nor  such 
wealth  of  voluntary  gifts,  nor  such  hold  on  the  imagi- 
nation and  reverence  of  men,  as  Papal  Borne,  stripped 
of  the  last  vestige  of  temporal  power,  has  to-day. 
What  no  mere  secular  government  can  do,  it  can 
command  men  to  be  martyrs.  Its  word  is  a  spell  of 
authority  as  much  in  the  heart  of  Africa  or  on  the 
Pacific  coast  as  in  the  chambers  of  the  Vatican.  It 
can  by  a  whisper  raise  or  quell  a  religious  frenzy  in 
Paris,  Vienna,  San  Francisco,  or  Quebec.  It  can 
block  the  wheels  of  the  strongest  military  power  that 
ever  existed  on  earth,  and  does  it  to-day.     It  claims 


MILITARY  EMPIRE   OF  ROME.  207 

to  hold,  alone,  the  key  to  the  great  social  problem,  the 
despair  of  moralists  and  statesmen,  and  with  it  to  con- 
trol the  next  great  step  of  human  evolution. 

We  may  deny  that  claim  ;  we  may  hate,  dread,  or 
defy  the  authority  which  still  asserts  itself  in  so  many 
ways.  The  one  thing  we  cannot  do  is  to  despise  it. 
And  among  all  matters  of  historical  inquiry  the  one 
that  seems  best  worth  our  understanding,  if  we  can,  is 
the  course  of  events  that  laid  the  foundations  of  that 
power  so  deep  and  strong.  Some  of  the  conditions  of 
its  exercise  we  shall  have  to  consider  when  we  come 
to  speak  of  the  mediaeval  Empire-Church.  Just  now 
we  deal  only  with  the  period  of  its  foundation. 

The  military  empire  of  Home  was  about  five  hun- 
dred years  *  in  coming  to  its  greatest  breadth  and 
height.  This  was  a  process  of  conquest  carried  out 
by  the  patriotic  valor  of  the  Eoman  armies,  and 
guided  by  the  vigorous  policy  —  often  kept  in  check 
by  the  jealous  dread  —  of  the  Eoman  Senate.  Again 
and  again  conquests  were  undertaken  reluctantly,  and 
carried  out  in  self-defence,  exactly  as  they  are  by 
England  in  Asia  and  Africa  to-day.  In  particular, 
Eome  was  obliged  to  resist  steadily,  for  two  or  three 
centuries,  the  steady  advance  of  barbarian  tribes,  in 
that  movement  which  threatened  to  cover  as  with  a 
flood  the  whole  field  of  ancient  civilization.  She  was 
obliged  to  conquer,  exterminate,  enslave  them ;  to 
draft  them  in  her  armies ;  to  keep  them  in  check  by 
military  colonies ;  to  adopt  them  in  her  political  sys- 
tem ;  to  humor  and  tolerate  their  religions ;  to  give 

*  Counting  from  the  invasion  of  the  Gauls  (b.  c.  390)  to  the 
time  of  Trajan. 


208  CONVERSION    OF   THE   BARBARIANS. 

them  whatever  share  and  stake  was  possible  in  the 
wealth,  art,  skill,  at  her  command.  All  her  treasures 
of  military  skill,  of  population,  of  state-craft,  had  been 
spent  in  that  struggle  —  with  diminishing  strength  at 
last,  and  vanishing  hope  ;  and  now  the  end  had  plainly 
come.  The  Barbarian  was  master  of  the  civilized 
world,  and  all  its  treasures  were  at  his  feet. 

We  need  not  go  at  any  length  into  the  vast  tragedy 
of  the  Fall  of  Kome.  It  is  with  a  single  point  only 
of  its  historical  significance  that  we  have  to  do.  Just 
at  this  moment  of  time  —  the  final  collapse  of  the 
ancient  system  —  the  vast  conception  came,  like  a 
flash  of  genius  as  it  were,  upon  such  minds  as  Leo's, 
to  win  back  all  that  was  lost,  and  more,  but  in  another 
way.  Pagan  Borne  had  attempted  the  conquest  of 
the  barbarian  world,  and  had  failed.  Christian  Borne 
should  undertake  to  conquer  the  soul  of  Barbarism  itself, 
and  in  God's  name  would  do  it.  Such  was  the  mag- 
nificent conception  of  Leo,  of  Gregory,  of  the  English 
Winfried  surnamed  Boniface.  Not  only  the  thought 
itself  was  more  amazing  and  grand  than  had  ever 
dawned  on  the  mind  of  general  or  statesman.  The 
means  by  which  it  was  carried  out  show  a  larger 
political  grasp,  a  more  consummate  generalship,  a 
steadier  courage,  a  reach  and  subtilty  of  resource,  a 
firmness  of  policy,  to  which  the  perishing  Empire  had 
shown  no  parallel. 

The  weapons  of  this  warfare,  too,  were  as  original 
as  its  conception  was  great  and  new.  They  were,  in 
the  most  literal,  even  tender  and  pathetic  sense,  the 
weapons  of  Christian  love.  The  barbarian  world  must 
be  wTon,  if  at  all,  by  way  of  sympathy.     It  must  be 


OUTSIDE   VIEW    OF   THE   BAEBARIAN.  209 

conquered  through  its  imagination,  conscience,  and 
religious  awe.  The  men  who  went  out  to  that  con- 
quest must  go  animated  and  haunted  with  a  great 
yearning  for  saving  souls.  The  power  with  which 
they  were  clothed  was  the  power  of  poverty,  austerity, 
obedience,  and  self-denial. 

I  do  not  use  these  words  at  random.  Volumes  of 
the  correspondence  of  these  men  have  come  down  to 
us,  and  they  show  the  qualities  I  have  named  on 
every  page.  They  show,  too,  an  incredible  patience 
of  detail ;  —  such  as  we  might  vaguely  imagine  to  be 
needful  if  we  try  to  shape  out  in  our  minds  the  con- 
ditions of  the  task ;  but  such  as  we  could  not  defi- 
nitely conceive  without  those  innumerable  strange, 
quaint,  touching  illustrations.  I  may  attempt  pres- 
ently to  restore  a  line  or  two  of  these  faded  memo- 
ries ;  but  first  we  should  try  to  see  a  little  more 
distinctly  the  outside  aspect  of  the  case. 

There  is  a  brief  bright  picture  in  one  of  Chryso- 
stom's  homilies,  of  the  barbarian  as  he  appeared  in  the 
market-place  of  Constantinople,  —  restless,  turbulent, 
curious,  bearded,  thrusting  at  passers-by  with  the 
stick  he  carries,  tossing  back  his  shock  of  hair  "  more 
like  a  lion  than  a  man."  This  is  just  before  the  great 
real  terror  of  the  Gothic  name.  St.  Jerome  reflects, 
from  his  convent  in  Bethlehem,  the  far-off  vision  of 
the  agony  at  the  sack  of  Eome  by  Alaric,  and  the 
haggard  spectacle  of  vagrant,  hungry,  despairing  troops 
of  men  and  women,  high-born,  delicately  bred,  used 
to  luxury,  stripped  of  everything  in  that  great  deso- 
lation. "  I  cannot  see  it  wuthout  tears,"  he  says ; 
"  that  power  of  old,  and  wealth  unknown,  have  come 


210  CONVERSION    OF   THE   BARBARIANS. 

to  such  need  as  to  lack  roof,  food,  and  clothing ;  and 
still  the  hard  and  cruel  heart  of  some  men  is  not 
softened :  nay,  they  rip  up  their  wretched  rags  and 
wallets,  to  find  gold  among  these  poor  captives."  * 

The  monk  Salvian,  a  few  years  later,  had  watched 
in  Gaul  or  Spain  the  Gothic  and  Vandal  tide,  wave 
upon  wave,  and  set  himself  to  a  serious  study  of  bar- 
barian frankness,  simplicity,  courage,  ferocity,  or  craft, 
compared  with  the  various  forms  of  civilized  vice 
generated  in  the  corruption  of  Pagan  society;  and  finds 
the  new  rude  population  at  least  as  hopeful  subjects 
for  conversion  as  the  old,  which  it  justly  displaced. 
St.  Augustine  about  the  same  time  recites,  in  phrase 
that  I  have  before  cited,  the  judgment  of  God  in  the 
overthrow  of  that  evil  world.  The  dainty  Sidonius 
Apollinaris,  writing  from  Toulouse  (about  455),  tells 
jestingly  of  his  seven-foot  Gothic  hosts  (too  big  for 
his  hexameters),  greased  with  rancid  butter,  reeking 
of  onion  and  garlic,  and  clad  in  shabby  kilt  and  tar- 
tan, f  A  little  later,  Jornandes  gives,  with  the  vivid- 
ness of  an  eye-witness  who  had  felt  its  terror,  the 
sketch  which  all  historians  since  have  copied,  of  the 
hardly  human  Huns  —  more  brutes  than  men,  cling- 
ing like  cats  to  the  backs  of  the  horses' they  scarce 
ever  left,  with  strange  flat-nosed  Mongol  visages  and 
beaded  gimlet-holes  (as  it  were)  in  place  of  eyes  — 
who  poured  on  like  the  flood  and  were  swept  back  like 
the  ebb,  but  threatened  at  one  time  to  put  all  Eu- 
rope under  the  yoke  of  Asia. 

*  Introduction  to  the  Commentary  on  Ezekiel. 
t  So  St.  Sturmi,  exploring  the  wilderness  for  Boniface,  smells 
the  evil  odor  of  the  barbarians  afar  off. 


GREGORY   OF   TOURS.  211 

These  are  hints  of  the  preliminary  studies,  sketches 
of  the  field  of  operations,  before  the  serious  campaign 
began.  Of  the  century  of  wreck  and  waste  that  fol- 
lowed, in  the  wake  of  Lombard  and  Frank  invasion, 
we  have  a  full-length  picture,  grotesque  in  the  sim- 
plicity with  which  its  horrors  are  drawn  out,  in  the 
pages  of  the  excellent  and  pious  Gregory,  Bishop  of 
Tours,  who  bravely  and  patiently  held  his  post  in  the 
midst  of  them.*  A  single  family  group,  taken  from 
his  sketches  and  told  in  meagre  outline,  will  help 
us  more,  perhaps,  than  any  generalization  of  them. 

Clovis,f  king  of  the  Franks,  had  been  converted 
by  his  Burgundian  bride  Clotilda,  and  baptized  by 
St.  Eemigius,  who  spoke  to  him  the  brave  words, 
"  Meekly  bow  thy  neck,  Sicambrian  ;  adore  what  thou 
hast  burned,  burn  what  thou  hast  adored."  He  was 
of  the  true  faith,  and  impartially  destroyed  both 
Pagan  Alleman  and  Arian  Burgundian  or  Goth.  J 
"  God  overthrew  his  enemies  daily  under  his  hand," 
says  Gregory,  "  because  he  walked  with  an  upright 
heart  before  him,  and  did  that  which  was  pleasing  in 

*  These  have  been  condensed  by  Augustin  Thierry  in  his  six 
brief  and  curious  "  Tales  of  the  Merovingian  Times." 

t  Barbaric,  Chlodovig ;  softened  in  lapse  of  time  to  Louis. 

X  The  destruction  of  the  premature  but  brilliant  Arian  civiliza- 
tion of  the  Goths  and  Burgundians  —  assailed  by  the  conquests  of 
Belisarius  on  one  side,  and  crushed  by  the  brutality  of  the  Franks 
on  the  other  —  is  one  of  the  obscurer  tragedies  of  this  evil  time. 
Some  features  of  this  civilization  will  be  found  hinted  at  below, 
under  the  title  "  The  Christian  Schools."  It  is  pathetic  to  read  the 
warning  given  (in  the  correspondence  of  Cassiodorus)  by  the  great 
Ostrogothic  King  Theodoric  to  the  young  Alaric  of  Toulouse,  the 
Visigoth,  to  beware  of  the  quarrel  with  the  Franks,  in  which,  a 
few  years  later,  his  kingdom  perished. 


212      COX  VERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

his  eyes."  And  lie  adds,  a  little  further  on,  that, 
"  having  slain  many  other  princes,  yea,  his  own  nearest 
kindred,  of  whom  he  had  jealousy  lest  they  should 
take  the  kingdom  from  him,  he  extended  his  power 
through  all  Gaul.  And  once  having  called  together 
his  people,  he  is  said  to  have  spoken  thus  concerning 
the  kinsmen  whom  he  had  slain  :  '  Woe  is  me,  who 
remain  as  a  pilgrim  among  strangers,  and  have  no 
kindred,  who  if  adversity  should  come  might  give  me 
help.'  This  he  said,"  adds  Gregory,  quaintly,  "  not 
grieving  at  their  death,  but  by  craft,  if  perchance  he 
might  find  any  still  remaining  whom  he  might  put 
to  death." 

His  son  Clotaire  was  of  the  same  barbarian  temper, 
his  many  murders  and  many  wives  alike  the  scandal 
of  his  Christian  profession.  One  of  his  queens, 
Eadegonda,  whose  father  and  brother  he  had  killed 
in  war,  escaped  with  some  hazard  and  became  a  con- 
secrated nun,  founding  with  her  dower  a  convent  of 
some  celebrity,  where  with  her  friend,  the  poet  Fortu- 
natus,  she  found  repose,  —  a  little  island  of  peace 
amidst  the  tumultuous  inundation.  The  last  act  of 
Clotaire's  brutality  was  to  fasten  in  a  hut  and  burn 
alive  on  some  suspicion  his  son  Chramnes,  with  all 
his  family ;  after  which,  at  the  tomb  of  St.  Martin, 
he  confessed  "  all  the  acts  which  perchance  he  had 
done  amiss,  imploring  with  deep  groans  that  the 
blessed  saint  would  beseech  the  Lord's  mercy  for  his 
sins,  and  wash  out  by  his  intercession  whatever  he 
had  unreasonably  done,"  "  What  a  heavenly  Lord  is 
this,"  he  said  when  dying  with  fever,  "  who  so  destroys 
mighty  kings  I " 


THE  BARBARIAN  FRANKS.  213 

Of  the  sons  of  Clotaire,  Gontran  "  the  good  "  was 
held  (says  Sismondi)  "  to  be  a  man  of  humane  tem- 
per ;  for,  excepting  his  wife's  physician,  whom  he  cut 
in  pieces  for  failing-  to  cure  her,  two  of  his  brothers- 
in-law  whom  he  assassinated,  and  another  whom  he 
treacherously  slew,  there  is  hardly  any  cruel  act 
recorded  of  him,  except  it  be  his  destroying  the  city 
of  Cominges,  and  slaughtering  all  the  inhabitants, 
men,  women,  and  children."  He  was,  moreover,  a 
strong  friend  of  the  monks  and  clergy,  founded  sev- 
eral monasteries,  and  paid  liberally  for  the  expiatory 
rites  that  would  give  his  soul  repose. 

A  great  part  of  the  tale  is  taken  up  with  the  jeal- 
ousies, treacheries,  and  ambitions  of  the  two  barbarian 
queens,  Fredegond  and  Brunehild,  —  more  famous  far 
than  the  two  brothers  whose  wives  they  were, —  with 
the  intrigues  and  murders  that  grew  out  of  them. 
But  both  were  zealous  champions  of  orthodoxy. 
Fredegond  spared  no  cost  to  purchase  ransom  for  the 
souls  of  her  hired  assassins,  if  they  should  fall ;  and 
Brunehild  —  who  was  tied  to  a  wild  horse  in  her  old 
age,  and  so  torn  to  pieces  —  was  a  correspondent  and 
friend  of  Gregory  the  Great,  and  a  stanch  supporter 
of  his  scheme  for  the  conversion  of  the  Saxons. 

Such  allies  as  these,  for  better  or  worse,  the  Church 
had  found  in  its  campaign  against  barbarian  pagan- 
ism and  Arian  heresy ;  just  as  half-pagan  Frankish 
chiefs  like  Charles  Martel  sought  the  alliance  of 
churchmen  like  Boniface  against  the  wilder  floods 
that  still  beat  upon  their  frontier.  The  service  was 
mutual,  and  each  party  was  largely  independent  of 
the  other.     Often,  indeed,  the  Church  could  only  give 


214      CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

a  Christian  name,  without  changing  the  thing.  Thus 
Gregory  the  Great  thinks  it  necessary  to  spare  them 
the  old  pagan  temples,  only  sprinkling  them  with 
holy  water,  and  putting  saints'  relics  in  place  of  idols  ; 
and  to  adopt  their  old  festivals,  as  Yule  and  Easter, 
under  new  associations. 

Many  and  strange  were  the  scandals  that  came  of 
these  conversions.  "  Here  I  have  been  baptized  more 
than  twenty  times,"  said  an  old  man  one  day,  when 
the  crowd  was  larger  than  usual,  and  the  baptismal 
robes  gave  out,  "  and  every  time  they  have  given  me 
most  beautiful  clothes.  These  old  rags  to-day  are 
hardly  fit  for  a  ploughboy,  not  to  say  a  warrior  like 
me."  One  new  convert  takes  the  opportunity  to 
pick  the  priest's  pocket  while  the  water  is  preparing 
for  his  baptism.  One  proposes  that  a  point  of  her- 
esy shall  be  settled,  not  by  "  these  long  talks,"  but 
promptly,  by  the  ordeal  of  boiling  water.  "  Is  it 
true,"  asks  a  barbarian  chief,  his  foot  already  in  the 
sacred  font,  "  that  my  ancestors  the  noble  Frisians 
are  in  hell  ? "  "  Doubtless,"  replies  the  priest ;  "  they 
died  without  the  only  saving  faith."  "  Then  " — draw- 
ing back  his  foot  —  "I  will  not  quit  those  brave  men 
to  join  the  cowards  of  your  paradise.  We  will  follow 
the  ways  of  our  fathers."  And  so,  in  comforting 
vision,  the  priest  soon  after  beheld  the  defiant  chief 
among  his  ancestors  in  the  fiery  pit. 

It  is  a  fair  question  to  ask  what  such  conversions 
were  really  worth.  To  this  the  answer  is,  that  the 
first  point  was  to  bring  those  fierce  tribes,  in  name  at 
least,  within  the  Christian  pale,  and  to  substitute  the 
Christian  for  the  pagan  ideal.    Everything  was  staked 


SAINT   COLUMBAN.  215 

on  the  success  with  which  this  preliminary  work  was 
done.  The  hope  of  the  world  lay  in  those  rude  men  ; 
and  their  instructors  felt  it  in  a  way  which  they  pos- 
sibly could  not  have  explained  to  us  so  well  as  we 
can  understand  it  for  them.  Take  the  breadth  of 
modern  thought  and  life,  —  science,  enterprise,  art, 
wealth,  power,  —  and  set  it  against  anything  that 
could  possibly  have  grown  from  the  degenerate  Greek 
or  Eoman  stock ;  and  you  measure  in  part  the  service 
that  was  done,  when  that  rude  vigor  was  grafted  with 
the  shoot  of  a  finer  life,  which  would  in  time  yield 
such  infinitely  richer  fruit. 

Or,  again,  look  away  from  the  vague  idealities 
which  are  apt  to  fill  the  field  of  history  to  what  the 
Christian  monks,  scattered  by  tens  of  thousands  all 
through  the  great  wilderness  of  barbarism,  were  ac- 
tually doing  there  :  the  infinite  serious  patience  with 
which  they  went  about  their  task  ;  the  austerities  of 
the  self-denial  that  trained  them  for  it,  and  kept  its 
ideal  from  fading  in  them ;  the  hints  of  beastly  and 
violent  ways  which  they  attempted  to  keep  in  check ; 
the  strange  power  of  fascination  which  these  very 
austerities  exercised,  to  attract  men  to  them.  St.  Co- 
lumban  establishes  his  post  alone  in  the  hill-country 
near  the  Ehine,  because  the  rule  of  Benedict  is  not 
sufficiently  austere ;  and  the  more  rigid  the  lines  he 
draws,  the  more  men  press  to  enter  them.*     This 

*  A  brother  who  does  not  say  Amen  after  grace  must  be  pun- 
ished with  six  stripes  ;  who  neglects  to  cross  himself  after  bless- 
ing, twelve  stripes ;  who  does  not  check  a  cough  in  reciting  the 
Psalm,  or  dents  the  sacramental  cup  with  his  teeth,  six  stripes; 
who  appeals  from  judgment  to  his  superior,  forty  days'  penance  on 
bread  and  water.    A  lay  brother  who  gets  drunk,  or  is  sick  from 


216      CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBAEIANS. 

earth,  says  Columban,  is  non  vita  seel  via,  "  not  a  life, 
but  a  way,"  and  to  transgressors  he  made  it  very 
hard. 

I  have  said  before  that  some  of  those  men  were  mar- 
tyrs for  humanity.  St.  Pretextatus,  who  had  bravely 
sheltered  his  godson  Merovig,  is  assassinated  in  his 
own  church  by  Fredegond's  order.  St.  Wandregisil 
keeps  an  angry  mob  at  bay  with  pious  words,  and 
will  not  appeal  to  any  arm  of  flesh.  St.  Bavon  hum- 
bles himself  in  remorse  before  a  slave  he  has  once 
owned,  and  for  penance  compels  him  to  shave  his 
head,  beat  him  with  rods,  and  shut  him  up  in  prison. 
St.  Germanus  strips  himself  to  the  shirt  to  clothe  a 
shivering  beggar,  and  beggars  himself  to  ransom  cap- 
tives. St.  Sequanus  goes  out  to  live  in  a  savage 
wood  inhabited  by  more  savage  men.  "  No  sooner 
did  they  see  him,  than  from  wolves  they  became 
lambs  ;  from  such  as  but  now  were  a  source  of  ter- 
ror, they  were  thenceforth  ministers  of  help ;  and 
what  had  been  a  resort  of  cruel  demons  and  robbers 
became  the  abode  of  innocence  and  virtue."  Such 
tales  as  these,  with  many  a  miracle  and  wonder  in- 
terspersed, and  enforced  by  many  a  Christian  homily, 
and  seasoned  by  many  a  subtile  theological  debate, 
came  (says  Guizot)  to  be  the  mental  diversion  and 
the  moral  instruction  of  whole  populations,  —  their 
Arabian  Nights,  their  popular  novel,  their  sermon 
and  essay,  their  daily  newspaper. 

Yes,  the  hope  of  the  world  lay  in  those  rude  men. 
The  future  of  humanity  was  staked  upon  such  tasks 

greediness,  seven  (Lays'  bread  and  water;  who  eats  or  drinks  in 
honor  of  pagan  idols,  three  years  of  such  penance. 


GREGORY  THE   GREAT.  217 

as  those  which  attempted  their  conversion.  When 
Gregory  the  Great  was  yet  a  simple  monk,  —  so  each 
of  his  biographers  delights  to  repeat  the  tale,  —  he 
saw  in  the  market-place  at  Borne  some  captive  Anglo- 
Saxon  boys,  ruddy-faced,  golden-haired,  such  as  we 
often  see  in  the  streets,  and  as  the  Italian  painters 
(Goethe  says)  take  for  their  type  of  cherubs.  Learn- 
ing who  they  were,  Non  Angli  scd  angcli  was  his 
famous  reply,  —  "  Not  Angles  but  angels  " ;  and  from 
that  hour  he  set  his  heart  on  their  conversion.  Now 
the  Saxons  were  rudest  and  fiercest  of  all  the  bar- 
barous tribes  ;  and  since  their  conquest  of  England, 
near  a  century  and  a  half  before,  —  when  they  over- 
threw the  legendary  realm  of  King  Arthur,  and  drove 
back  the  Christian  Britons  to  the  mountains  of  Wales 
and  the  Western  Isles, —  had  remained  obstinately 
Pagan.  All  English  histories  tell  the  story  of  Au- 
gustine of  Canterbury  and  his  forty  monks,  sent  by 
Gregory  (597),  and  their  conversion  of  the  Saxon; 
and  in  Gregory's  letters  you  may  read  how  persist- 
ently and  hopefully  he  followed  them  up,  when  they 
shrank  from  the  terror  of  the  unknown  journey* 
This  was  amid  the  very  ferocity  of  the  "  Merovingian 
times  "  before  described.  Their  protector  on  the  way 
was  the  truculent  Brunehild;  and  the  act  was  one 
which,  more  than  any  other,  marks  Gregory  as  the 
head  and  chief  in  this  long  unbloody  crusade. 

Gregory  is  one  of  those  men  who  are  heroic  from 
the  steady  courage  and  persistency  of  will  with  which 

*  What  is  so  well  told  in  so  accessible  a  book  as  Green's  "  His- 
tory of  the  English  People,"  it  does  not  seem  worth  while  to  repeat 
by  way  of  narrative. 

10 


218  COX  VERSION    OF   THE   BARBARIANS. 

they  face  great  disasters,  and  cany  a  great  burden  of 
duty  through  a  hard  and  dangerous  way.  In  reading 
his  correspondence,  we  feel  painfully  that  we  have 
come  upon  a  far  lower  intellectual  level  than  we  had 
in  Leo,  a  hundred  and  fifty  years  before.  He  dwells 
rather  pitifully  on  the  marvels  and  terrors  of  saints' 
bones,  and  makes  much  of  the  filings  of  St.  Paul's  or  St. 
Peter's  chains,  which  he  has  enclosed  in  gold  keys  and 
sends  as  gifts  of  magic  efficacy  to  barbarian  lord  or 
lady.  But  this  childish  way  of  thought  is  joined  to 
a  very  manful  courage  and  sincerity  in  dealing  with 
the  duties  of  his  office.  From  that  office  he  shrank 
back  at  first,  as  well  he  might ;  fled  from  the  city ; 
and  yielded  only  when  his  retreat- was  betrayed  by  a 
miraculous  light,  and  a  white  dove  led  the  way  to 
his  pursuers.  Of  high  rank  and  luxurious  tastes,  he 
cast  those  things  absolutely  away,  starving  himself  to 
permanent  ill  health  by  his  austerities,  and  enforcing 
such  rigid  monastic  discipline  in  his  own  household 
that,  when  he  learned  once  that  a  brother  had  kept 
(for  keepsake,  perhaps)  three  pieces  of  gold,  he  would 
pardon  him  not  even  on  his  death-bed,  but  cast  his 
body  with  the  coins  upon  a  dunghill,  saying,  as  Peter 
to  Simon  Magus,  "  Thy  money  perish  with  thee  ! " 

These  bitter  rigors  and  self-denials  were  the  answer 
made,  by  a  conscience  highly  strung,  to  the  appeal  of 
the  miseries  that  surrounded  him  in  the  city,  thrice 
desolated,  by  violence,  flood,  and  pestilence.  But  it 
is  not  the  story  of  his  fourteen  years'  rule  (590-604), 
rigid,  charitable,  energetic,  and  wise,  that  we  have  to 
look  at  now ;  only  the  astonishing  industry  and  moral 
energy  of  the  man.     His  correspondence  is  immense. 


SAINT   BONIFACE.  219 

His  homilies,  commentaries,  and  moral  treatises,  in 
many  volumes,  have  earned  him  the  title  of  "  last  of 
the  Fathers."  This  great  amount  of  work  he  did  with 
a  definite  practical  aim,  with  genuine  humility,  among 
the  distractions  of  office ;  surrounded  by  what  looked 
to  him  a  mere  chaos  of  wild  waves,  amidst  which  the 
ship  he  was  pilot  of  was  tossing  helplessly ;  suffering 
too  with  illness  and  torments  of  "  gout "  (inflamma- 
tory rheumatism,  probably),  and  for  years  able  only  to 
drag  himself  from  bed  for  three  hours  in  the  day,  to 
attend  the  ceremonies  of  his  priesthood.  As  he  grew 
old,  he  felt  these  pains  and  cares  more  heavily, — 
poisoned,  perhaps,  with  the  malaria  that  already  began 
to  infect  the  neighborhood  of  Kome.  "  Oppressed  with 
its  burden,"  said  he,  "  my  soul  sweats  blood."  Yet 
he,  more  than  any  other  one  man,  was  the  chief  of 
that  great  crusade,  which  he  directed  from  his  sick 
bed ;  a  campaign,  says  Ozanam,  fought  out  by  "  in- 
valids and  women  and  slaves." 

The  next  very  eminent  leader  in  this  campaign  — 
at  the  end  of  another  century  and  a  half  —  is  the 
English  Winfried,  otherwise  St.  Boniface  of  Germany, 
who  was  martyred  in  755.  His  work  was  a  direct 
though  distant  result  of  Gregory's  great  enterprise  in 
Saxon  England.  For  the  Saxons  were  at  this  time 
chief  and  most  formidable  of  all  the  barbarous  nations  ; 
and,  though  Christian  in  England,  still  hung  like  a 
heavy  cloud  all  along  the  northeastern  portion  of 
half-civilized  France,  fanatic  in  their  old  paganism, 
till  subdued  by  Charlemagne,  with  other  outlying 
tribes,  many  years  later,  in  thirty-three  bloody  cam- 
paigns. 


220       CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

I  do  not  know  where  we  have  a  higher  example  of 
blended  sweetness  and  courage,  with  a  native  frank- 
ness and  nobleness  of  temper,  than  in  the  life  of  Boni- 
face. It  has  been  asked  whether  his  courage  was  not 
rather  of  a  feminine  sort,  considering,  perhaps,  the 
passive  serenity  of  his  death.  But,  from  the  time 
when  the  first  great  passion  seized  him,  at  the  age  of 
twenty-three,  of  giving  himself  to  this  service,  till  his 
death  at  seventy-two,  his  life  was  spent  by  choice  in 
the  rudest  and  most  hazardous  exposures.  While 
passively  obedient  to  meekness  in  his  devotion  to  the 
authority  of  Rome,  he  is  plain  to  bluntness  in  rebuk- 
ing to  the  Pope  himself  the  disorders  he  found  in  the 
Christian  capital:  "These  carnal  men,  these  simple 
Allemans,  Boians,  and  Franks,  if  they  hear  of  such 
things  at  Rome  as  we  forbid,  will  think  them  lawful, 
and  be  offended.  They  hear  of  pagan  dances,  shouts, 
and  songs  close  by  the  church,  at  new-year,  day  or 
night ;  and  that  one  will  not  lend  his  neighbor  tool 
or  fire;  and  that  women  wear  amulets,  garters,  and 
bracelets,  in  pagan  fashion,  and  sell  the  same.  With 
these  carnal  and  ignorant  people,  such  things  are  a 
great  hindrance  to  our  doctrine.  If  you  prohibit  them 
at  Rome,  it  will  be  a  great  gain  to  you  and  to  us." 
And  he  warns  the  Pope  of  grosser  scandals  reported 
within  the  church.  "  The  pagan  rites,"  answers  Zach- 
ary,  "  we  j  udge  detestable  and  pernicious  "  ;  and  he 
says  they  must  be  put  down.  The  worse  offences  he 
entreats  Boniface  "noway  to  believe."  Tiiis  frankness 
of  correspondence  is  an  honor  alike  to  both. 

It  was  the  yearning  of  kindred,  no  less  than  pure 
missionary  zeal,  that  drew  the  Saxon  Winfried  from 


BONIFACE   AND    CHARLES   MAETEL.  221 

the  pleasant  South  of  England,  towards  those  un- 
tamed Saxons  of  the  Continent,  whom  he  could  ad- 
dress in  his  and  their  mother  tonorue.* 

Now  if  we  remember  the  place  which  this  same 
Saxon  race  has  filled  in  history,  —  how  it  was  the 
steady  support  of  the  Lutheran  Eeform  on  one  side  and 
of  English  Puritanism  on  the  other;  how  it  makes 
the  mass  and  strength  of  the  two  great  empires  of 
Britain  and  Germany  to-day,  and  of  the  American  Re- 
public ;  how  its  blood  and  its  language  have  spread, 
through  its  great  genius  for  colonization,  till  they  are 
dominant  over  nearly  a  third  of  the  earth's  surface 
and  population,  — we  shall  better  appreciate  the  great- 
ness of  the  work  that  was  set  on  foot  when  Boniface 
penetrated  the  wilds  beyond  the  Ehine,  to  preach  in 
his  native  English  there. 

This  work  was  distinctly  understood  to  be  the  task 
of  civilization,  and  the  saving  of  what  men  had  then 
best  worth  saving.  We  can  still  read  the  awkward 
Latin  of  the  safe-conduct  given  by  Charles  Martel  to 
this  missionary  monk,  and  signed  with  his  hand  and 
seal.  This  is  in  724,  in  the  midst  of  the  gathering 
and  disciplining  of   that   confederation,  with  which 

*  The  speech  in  which  lie  addressed  them  is  almost  intelligible 
to  our  English  ears  to-day,  as  preserved  in  this  fragment  of  his 
baptismal  vows  :  "  Forsachis  tu  diobolas  1  —  Ec  forsacho  diobolse.  — 
End  allum  diobol-gelde  (fellowship)?: — Ec  forsacho  allum  diobol- 
gelde.  —  End  allum  dioboles  werkum  ?  —  End  ec  forsacho  allum 
dioboles  werkum  end  wordum  :  Thunaer,  ende  Woden,  ende  Sax- 
note,  ende  allem  them  unholdum  the  hira  genotas  sint  (unholy 
that  are  akin  to  them).  —  Gelobis  tu  in  Got  almehtigan  fadaer?  — 
Ec  gelobo  in  Got  almehtigan  fadaer.  —  Gelobis  tu  in  Crist,  Godes 
suno? —  Ec  gelobo  in  Crist,  Godes  suno.  —  Gelobis  du  in  Halogan 
Gast  ? —  Ec  gelobo  in  Halogan  Gast."  [This  is  a  little  mangled  in 
Migne,  but  restored  by  Ozanam.] 


222      CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

eight  years  later  he  met  Abclelrahman  on  the  plain  of 
Tours,  and  dammed  back  the  flood  of  Saracen  con- 
quest. The  penniless  unarmed  monk  and  the  power- 
ful military  chief  respected  one  another  as  allies  in 
the  defence  of  Christeudom,  —  neither  more  indispen- 
sable than  the  other.  As  a  token  of  the  same  alli- 
ance, nearly  thirty  years  later,  Boniface  anointed 
with  his  own  hand  Charles's  son  Pepin  as  king  of 
the  Franks  (752),  in  place  of  the  degenerate  and 
worthless  house  of  Clovis,  so  sealing  the  compact  of 
the  Monarchy  and  Church,  and  completing  the  first 
act  in  the  founding  of  the  Christian  Empire,  which 
we  shall  see  presently  as  one  of  the  essential  steps  of 
civilization. 

The  service  of  those  near  thirty  years  was  crowned 
by  the  founding  of  the  monastic  school  at  Fulda,  one 
of  the  chief  fountains  of  German  culture*  In  his 
ecclesiastical  residence  at  Mentz,  on  the  Rhine,  he 
might  have  found  rest  in  his  old  a^e,  and  his  life's 
work  well  done.  But  the  same  great  yearning  drew 
him  towards  those  Low  Countries  where  the  cloud  of 
Paganism  still  hung  heaviest.  "  Know,  my  son,"  said 
he  to  his  successor,  "  that  the  time  of  my  death  draws 
near.  Go  on  with  the  work  I  have  begun ;  finish  the 
church  at  Fulda,  and,  when  my  time  is  come,  bury  me 
there  ;  prepare  what  is  needful  for  my  journey,  and  do 
not  forget,  with  my  books,  to  send  a  winding-sheet." 
And  with  these  words  he  left  him  weeping. 

And  so  he  went  to  the  rude  Low  Country  toward 

*  See  the  curious  account  (copied  in  Kingsley's  "  Roman  and 
Teuton  "),  in  Eigil's  Life  of  Sturmi,  of  the  discovery  and  selection 
of  this  spot.  —  Migne,  Patrologia,  cv.  530. 


MARTYRDOM   OF  BONIFACE.  223 

the  North,  where  he  lived  by  the  river-side,  and  bap- 
tized the  converts  who  came  to  him  as  to  John  by 
Jordan.  But  one  day  there  came,  instead  of  the  band 
of  disciples  he  was  looking  for,  a  wild  crew  of  Pagans, 
who  "  with  great  din  and  horrid  array  of  arms  burst 
upon  the  encampment  of  the  saints."  At  first,  his 
young  men  would  resist  by  force.  "  But  the  holy  Bon- 
iface, hearing  the  onset  of  the  tumultuous  crowd,  fled 
to  the  refuge  of  spiritual  defence,  taking  (that  is)  the 
relics  of  saints  which  he  always  had  with  him.  So  he 
checked  the  young  men,  saying,  '  Do  not  fight,  my 
children;  do  not  bear  arms  against  our  adversaries, 
which  Holy  Scripture  forbids.  We  are  taught  to  re- 
turn not  evil  for  evil,  but  even  good  for  evil.  The  day 
long  desired  is  come,  when  we  are  bidden  from  the 
toil  and  sorrow  of  this  world  to  the  joys  of  eternal 
blessedness.  Strengthen  yourselves  rather  in  the  Lord, 
and  accept  gratefully  his  offered  mercy.'  But,  behold  ! 
before  his  words  were  ended,  the  furious  troop  rushed 
upon  them,  and  slew  them  in  the  blood  of  a  happy 
martyrdom." 

The  letter  of  the  story  we  may  often  have  to  ques- 
tion. But,  without  any  doubt,  it  tells  us  the  temper 
of  that  long  campaign,  in  which  the  victory  was 
gained,  once  for  all,  for  civilization  and  intelligence. 
The  barbarian  world,  once  nominally  won  to  the 
Church,  would  become  the  field  of  what  we  are  to 
know  hereafter  as  mediaeval  and  modern  Christianity. 

But  here,  to  make  the  sketch  complete,  we  must 
anticipate  a  little  the  course  of  time.  Along  with 
the  conquests  of  Charlemagne,  —  those  pitiless  con- 
quests, in  which  (it  was  said)  all  were  cut  off  who 


224      CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

were  "  taller  than  the  Emperor's  sword, "  —  a  sort  of 
nominal  Christianity  had  been  carried  deep  into  the 
Saxon  forests,  and  a  mongrel  faith  had  driven  back 
the  worship  of  Odin  and  Thor.  Such  as  it  was,  how- 
ever, and  spite  of  many  a  formidable  recoil  of  the  old 
superstition,  it  seems  to  have  pledged  those  regions  to 
alliance  with  the  Christian  monarchy  of  the  West. 

Loyalty  to  their  creed  was  like  loyalty  to  their  flag. 
"With  whatever  misgiving  and  reluctance,  the  rude 
Saxon,  having  once  enlisted  on  the  other  side,  stood 
stanchly  by  the  mightier  Power  that  had  foiled  his 
fathers'  gods.  The  chief  peril  to  those  wavering  con- 
quests of  the  Church  militant  lay  in  the  barbarous 
realm  beyond.  The  breach  might  be  quickly  healed 
where  it  had  been  quickly  broken ;  and  a  Scandina- 
vian or  Slavonic  horde  might  find  itself  in  alliance 
with  all  the  passionate  terrors  of  a  lingering  Paganism- 
Early  in  the  ninth  century,  Paschasius  Radbert 
(whom  we  shall  hear  of  again,  more  than  once)  was 
head  of  a  celebrated  school  at  Corbey.  His  favorite 
pupil  was  a  young  man,  Anschar,  a  warm  disciple  of 
his  brooding  and  mystical  theology.  In  the  fervid 
visions  of  his  youth,  Anschar  had  beheld  the  visible 
glory  of  the  Lord,  and  had  heard  himself  summoned 
by  celestial  voices  to  spend  his  life  for  the  conversion 
of  the  heathen,  and  so  to  win  the  blessed  crown  of 
martyrdom.  His  heart  was  brave,  and  his  will  firm ; 
but  his  piety  often  took  a  sombre  and  penitential  cast, 
leading  him  to  solitude  and  austerities,  out  of  the 
line  of  active  duty.  Conceiving  himself  to  be  fore- 
appointed  to  some  great  enterprise,  he  waited  for  some 
clear  call  to  his  real  work. 


ANSCHAR,   APOSTLE   OF   THE   NORTH.  225 

At  twenty-four  he  found  himself  already  engaged 
in  it.  From  the  monastic  school  at  New  Corbey  on 
the  Elbe,  the  Christian  conquests  begun  by  Boniface 
were  pushed  by  Anschar  into  the  remoter  north.  At 
Hamburg,  where  a  fortress  had  been  built  among  the 
dense  forests  that  made  the  pagan  frontier,  and  after- 
wards at  Bremen,  he  had  his  bishopric.  And  here  he 
found  native  helpers.  Harold  Hlak,  an  exiled  Dane, 
had  found  refuge  with  the  Emperor  Louis,  son  of 
Charlemagne,  adopting  the  Christian  faith,  and  his 
return  opened  the  way  for  a  mission  among  his  peo- 
ple. Eoving  Scandinavian  traders,  or  freebooters, 
had  been  as  far  as  Micklagard,  the  "great  city"  of  the 
East ;  and  there,  or  aloni^  the  Levant,  or  on  the  British 
coast,  or  at  the  Frankish  court,  they  had  found  the 
worship  of  the  "  white  Christ,"  whose  invisible  might 
had  broken  the  Saxon  strength,  and  forced  their  old 
religion  to  hide  itself  among  wilder  mountains,  in 
ruder  forests.*  The  secret  charm  of  a  more  powerful 
faith ;  the  Eoman  ritual,  which  seemed  to  them  the 
invocation  of  a  new  order  of  spirits  ;  intercourse  with 
their  own  Christian  captives,  and  the  sense  that  they 
were  dealing  with  a  more  skilled  and  educated  race, 
—  all  prepared  them  to  welcome  the  new  religion.  At 
their  request,  and  under  convoy  of  a  trading  fleet, 
Anschar  pursued  his  mission  to  the  North. 

Of  the  result  we  know  not  much  more  than  that 
he  was  favored  by  a  strong  party  among  the  Swedes ; 
that  he  was  partly  foiled  by  an  attack  of  pirates,  who 
seized  most  of  the  royal  gifts  and  holy  vessels  on  the 

*  All  this  is  told  in  a  charming  tale,  "  Anschar.    A  Story  of  the 
North,"  by  Richard  John  King  (London). 

10* 


226      CONVERSION  OF  THE  BARBARIANS. 

way ;  that  he  met  the  fierce  hostility  of  the  old  Pa- 
ganism, which  stood  savagely  at  bay  in  this  its  last 
fortress  ;  that  his  church  and  bishopric  at  Hamburg 
were  laid  waste  with  fire  ;  and  that,  after  I0112  wan- 
dering  and  peril,  he  died  at  sixty -four,  grieving  that 
his  Lord  had  not  thought  him  worthy  of  the  martyr's 
crown. 

These  three,  Gregory,  Boniface,  and  Anschar,  are 
conspicuously  the  heroes  of  that  long  crusade,  whose 
glory  belongs  to  many  generations  and  many  thou- 
sands of  faithful  men.  Their  completed  work  is  seen 
in  the  great  fact,  made  clear  before  the  end  of  this 
period,  that  all  Western  Europe,  from  Sicily  on  the 
south  to  Norway  or  even  Iceland  on  the  north,  is 
allied  in  one  spiritual  empire,  and  embarked  on  the 
career  of  a  common  civilization. 


XL 
THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

WE  have  seen  in  Christianity,  from  the  begin- 
ning, something  more  than  a  system  of  doc- 
trine, more  than  a  movement  of  religious  or  reforming 
zeal.  Its  first  announcement  was  that  "  the  kingdom 
of  heaven  is  at  hand."  These  words  were  taken  very 
literally  to  mean  the  regeneration  of  society,  and  the 
founding  of  a  Divine  Order  on  earth.  Its  scheme  was 
social,  and  even  political,  quite  as  much  as  it  was  re- 
ligious. The  Church  was  organized  for  discipline  and 
authority,  quite  as  much  as  it  was  for  piety,  charity, 
or  emotional  appeal.  Its  success  meant  revolution  in 
the  state,  quite  as  much  as  conversion  of  the  soul. 
The  Messianic  hope  of  the  reign  of  the  chosen  people 
passed  directly  over  to  it  as  a  heritage,  and  as  an  ele- 
ment of  power ;  and  was  adopted  in  the  sense  that  all 
institutions  and  all  authority  among  men  are  right- 
fully subject  to  the  law  of  Christ  as  interpreted  by 
the  ministers  of  Christ. 

The  reign  of  Constantine  had  been  in  part  a  fulfil- 
ment of  that  scheme.  It  was  the  task  of  a  Christian 
Emperor  to  make  over  the  institutions  of  the  Empire 
after  the  Christian  model ;  at  the  very  least,  to  make 
himself  the  official  defender  of  the  faith.  We  have 
seen  how  this  view  became  idealized  in  Augustine's 


228  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

"  City  of  God " ;  and  how  it  was  expanded  into  the 
conception  of  a  spiritual  Empire,  co-ordinate  with  the 
military  dominion  of  Rome,  we  have  heard  from  the 
lips  of  Leo.  We  have  followed,  for  the  space  of  more 
than  three  centuries,  the  conquests  of  that  idea.  We 
have  now  to  see  the  form  it  takes,  as  the  period  of 
conquest  is  passed  ;  as  the  task  of  Christianity  comes 
to  be  the  shaping  out  of  a  political  constitution,  and 
the  administration  of  secular  power. 

Our  immediate  object  of  study,  then,  is  the  Empire 
which  came  into  being  at  the  end  of  the  eighth  cen- 
tury. It  is,  in  a  very  accurate  sense,  the  goal  towards 
which  organized  Christianity  has  been  tending  for 
about  five  hundred  years.  The  great  historic  figures 
of  Constantine  and  Charlemagne  stand  —  as  in  the 
stately  porch  of  St.  Peter's  —  at  the  two  extremities 
of  the  course.  As  to  the  series  of  events  that  fill  the 
long  interval,  the  task  of  the  historian,  from  our  point 
of  view,  is  to  set  forth  as  well  as  he  can  the  motive 
and  spirit  of  the  great  Christian  leaders.  This  is  per- 
haps not  very  difficult.  We  see  pretty  clearly  what 
was  the  ideal  of  society  and  life  as  they  conceived  it; 
and,  on  the  whole,  we  may  fairly  say  that  they  vkept 
that  ideal  pretty  steadily  in  view,  as  the  real  aim  of 
their  policy  and  conduct. 

We  are  not  quite  so  clear  in  our  view  of  the  great 
social  revolution  now  to  be  described.  The  circum- 
stances are  more  perplexed.  The  motives  are  more 
mixed.  The  responsibility  of  power  compels  a  new 
standard  of  judgment.  Great  events  (such  as  the 
conflicts  of  the  twelfth  and  thirteenth  centuries) 
resulting    from    that    revolution    throw    back    their 


IMPERIAL   ROME.  229 

own  light,  sometimes  very  painfully,  on   the  actors 
in  it. 

Still,  in  the  main,  we  must  follow  the  same  rule,  — 
to  put  ourselves  in  their  place  as  well  as  we  can.  We 
must  not  judge  that  new  Christian  alliance  of  Church 
and  Empire  by  the  shape  it  actually  took  at  any  given 
time  ;  still  less  by  the  horrible  abuses,  the  travesties, 
the  corruptions,  that  came  about  long  generations 
after,  which  are  too  often  the  only  material  offered 
for  our  judgment. 

Nor,  on  the  other  hand,  should  we  be  misled  by  the 
purely  ideal  and  abstract  way  of  regarding  it  which 
we  find  in  Dante,  and  in  the  great  speculative  church- 
men who  were  his  teachers.  All  that  will  come  be- 
fore our  notice  in  due  time.  But,  just  now,  we  must 
do  it  the  justice  of  seeing  it  from  the  point  of  view  of 
the  men  who  were  the  living  actors  in  it.  We  must 
take  into  our  regard  their  ideal,  as  well  as  their  very 
coarse  and  hard  surroundings,  and  the  equally  coarse 
and  hard  temper  bred  by  the  passions  of  the  struggle. 
We  must  see,  if  we  can,  what  they  thought  ought  to 
be  done,  what  they  thought  could  be  done,  and  what 
they  really  tried  to  do. 

Now  we  must  bear  in  mind  —  besides  the  ideal  of 
human  society  itself,  which  they  held  then,  or  which 
we  hold  now  —  that  there  was  before  their  eyes  a 
form  of  government  actual,  irresistible,  invincible, 
and  by  its  innumerable  agents  present  everywhere. 
This  was  the  government  of  Imperial  Rome.  We 
must  not  underrate  the  importance  of  that  fact,  es- 
pecially the  powerful  charm  it  always  held  upon 
their  imagination.     "  The  peace  of  the  Empire  "  was 


230  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

to  them  more  than  a  phrase.  For  about  two  centu- 
ries, from  Augustus  to  Commodus,  it  had  been  the 
symbol  of  a  certain  authority  of  law,  a  security  of  life, 
a  frequency  and  easiness  of  intercourse,  a  central, 
controlling,  and  on  the  whole  beneficent  majesty, — 
strongly  relieved  against  old  memories  of  conflict 
everywhere,  against  the  more  dismal  horror  of  the 
century's  civil  war  in  Eome,  the  desolation,  violence, 
and  fear  men  associated  with  outlying  barbarism.* 
The  dominion  of  Eome,  haughty  and  superb,  included 
all  they  knew  of  culture,  art,  splendor,  civil  order ; 
all  they  thought  of  as  lawful  authority  and  power. 
All  the  sanctities  which  ancient  life  had  known,  such 
as  they  wTere,  had  come  to  be  embodied  in  that  awrful 
and  supreme  dominion. 

Eome  had  been  prefigured,  too,  in  prophecy,  as  last 
of  the  four  great  kingdoms  of  the  earth ;  and  so  its 
name  had  to  the  Christian  as  well  as  the  Pao;an  mind 
something  of  a  superhuman  spell.  It  might  perse- 
cute and  afflict  the  subjects  of  the  Church,  as  under 
the  best  of  emperors,  Trajan  and  Aurelius.  It  might 
attempt  to  extirpate  them  as  enemies  and  traitors,  as 
under  the  worst  of  tyrants,  Nero  and  Galerius.  It 
might  stand  to  them  as  the  visible  type  of  Antichrist, 
a  kingdom  of  Satan,  to  be  presently  overthrown,  as  in 
the  imagination  of  St.  Augustine.  But  even  then 
there  was  something  about  it  of  sanctity  and  awe. 
Martyrs  of  the  faith  testified  on  one  side  to  its  cor- 
ruption and  iniquity ;  but  at  the  same  moment  legions 

*  See  the  very  touching  illustrations  of  this  feeling  given  in 
Hodgkin's  "Italy  and  her  Invaders,"  Vol.  II.  pp.  505-508.  Com- 
pare Claudian,  In  Rufinum,  ii.  86-100. 


ROME  AND   THE   BARBARIAN.  231 

of  Christian  soldiers  —  as  the  "  thundering  legion  "  of 
Aurelius  —  were  righting  in  its  defence.  Their  abso- 
lute loyalty  to  it  in  idea  and  in  theory  is  as  strongly 
marked  as  their  absolute  courage  in  defying  its  power 
and  enduring  its  torture.  We  must  bear  in  mind, 
then,  that  the  Empire  of  Borne  stood  to  them,  as  it 
was  exhibited  by  Leo  the  Great  and  as  it  stands  to 
the  Catholic  mind  to-day,  the  type  of  sovereignty, — 
irresistible,  august,  divine. 

Again,  we  must  think  of  this  wide  and  powerful 
dominion  as  it  commanded  the  homage  and  vague 
awe  of  barbarous  tribes,  who  knew  it  only  at  a  dis- 
tance. They  were  not  wanting  in  intelligence,  any 
more  than  in  courage.  Their  imagination  was  all  the 
more  apt  to  be  overawed,  since  nothing  could  offer 
itself  for  comparison  with  that  mysterious  source  of 
power  whose  effects  they  felt.  The  weakness  of  bar- 
barism before  it  was  not  lack  of  bravery,  or  lack  of 
men,  or  even  lack  of  discipline.  It  was  lack  of  organ- 
ization on  a  large  scale.  Wherever  the  barbarian 
came  in  contact  with  it,  or  heard  of  it  by  remotest 
rumor,  —  in  African  waste,  or  Parthian  wild,  or  Ger- 
man wood,  —  it  was  always  and  everywhere  the  same 
Bo  man  eagle  he  met,  the  same  compact  force  of 
small,*  tough,  swarthy,  nervous,  disciplined,  indom- 
itable men,  all  trained  alike  to  obey  and  to  die  for 
that  distant,  dim  abstraction,  the  Eternal  City.  He 
met  the  same  type  of  commander,  —  patient,  resolute, 
hardy :  like  Caesar,  snatching  a  shield  from  a  common 

*  "  Men  of  such  petty  size  (tantuke  staturce)  :  for  our  littleness  is 
mostly  held  in  contempt  among  the  Gauls,  in  comparison  with 
their  own  bigness." —  Caesar,  B.  G.,  ii.  30. 


232  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

soldier,  to  fight  without  helm  or  breastplate  in  the 
van  ;  like  Hadrian,  bare-headed  and  on  foot  in  the  hot 
dust  of  Egypt  or  the  forests  of  Gaul,  —  and  always 
obedient  to  the  spell  of  that  invincible  Name. 

This,  I  say,  must  have  been  the  effect  on  men's 
imagination  of  those  five  hundred  years  of  conquest ; 
of  those  eight  centuries  during  which  no  armed  enemy 
had  entered  the  Roman  gate  ;  of  that  genius  for  organ- 
ization which  created  the  same  type  of  rule,  obeyed 
the  same  symbol  of  authority,  established  the  same 
code  of  law,  wherever  a  Eoman  force  got  footing  on 
the  soil.  The  spell  was  all  the  stronger,  because  the 
source  of  that  authority  was  something  mysterious, 
vague,  unseen.  Or,  if  a  barbarian  embassy  or  captive 
chief  came  to  visit  the  Imperial  City,  the  great  circuit 
of  the  walls  and  their  invincible  strength,  the  splen- 
dor, wealth,  and  luxury,  the  strange  spectacle  of  civil 
order  among  a  vast  city  population,  could  only,  by 
report  of  them,  deepen  and  confirm  the  spell.  Thus 
for  three  centuries,  while  Gaul  and  Goth  made  the 
chief  strength  of  Eoman  armies,  no  Gaul  or  Goth 
conceived  a  thought  of  disloyalty  to  the  Eoman  name, 
or  of  substituting  his  own  authority  for  that  he  served 
under.  So  Alaric  was  haunted  by  a  voice,  he  said, 
that  gave  him  no  quiet  day  or  night,  commanding  him 
to  assault  and  capture  Eome ;  *  but  first  he  led  his 
soldiers  six  years  up  and  down  in  Italy,  as  if  held  off 
by  the  potent  charm,  and  when  at  last  he  had  taken 

*  "  Non  somnia  nobis, 
Nee  volucres,  sed  clara  palam  vox  erlita  luco  est : 
Rnmpe  omnes,  Alarice  moras  !  hoc  impiger  anno, 
Alpibus  Italian  ruptis,  penetrabis  ad  Urbem." 

Claudian,  De  Bello  Getico,  546,  547. 


THE    EMPIRE,    SYMBOL   OF   SOVEREIGNTY.          233 

the  city  and  plundered  it,  within  a  year  he  was  dead, 
and  his  force  dispersed.  So  Radagaisus,  with  his  vast 
host,  had  perished,  lingering  about  Florence  on  his 
way  to  the  assault  of  Rome.  So  Attila,  the  "  scourge 
of  God,"  had  been  deterred  by  the  peaceable  embassy 
of  Leo,  who  warned  him  of  the  sudden  fate  of  all  who 
had  offered  violence  to  the  holy  city ;  and  the  bar- 
barian had  yielded,  saying  that  he  saw  behind  the 
venerable  priest  the  apparition  of  an  old  man  with  a 
terrible  countenance  and  threatening  gesture,  —  which 
men  thought  was  the  Apostle  Peter,  but  which  we 
may  think  was  the  spectre  of  the  majesty  of  Rome ; 
and,  a  few  months  later,  he  too  died,  choked  by  his 
own  blood.  So  Odoacer  the  Herulian  giant,  real 
sovereign  of  Italy,  to  whom  St.  Severinus  had  foretold 
dominion  when  he  stooped  to  enter  the  hermit's  hut, 
held  that  dominion  first  as  the  loyal  officer  of  the  last 
boy-tenant  of  the  Roman  throne,  and  then  as  "  Patri- 
cian "  by  appointment  of  the  Eastern  Emperor.  So 
Theodoric  the  Ostrogoth  reigned  thirty-three  years 
in  Italy  as  representing  the  best  training  that  the 
Empire  could  give,  and  as  guardian  of  the  art  and 
culture  that  the  Empire  had  been  able  to  hand  down. 
The  vague  awe  of  Rome,  as  something  mysterious, 
far-off,  and  invincible,  had  thus  stamped  itself  deep 
on  the  barbarian  mind.  The  Empire  became  the 
symbol  of  superhuman,  absolute,  universal  sovereignty, 
so  far  as  that  mind  could  conceive  such  a  thought ; 
for  which,  indeed,  no  other  symbol  could  possibly 
occur.  Accordingly  —  and  it  is  one  of  the  most  curi- 
ous traits  of  the  barbarian  mind  —  any  badge  of 
authority,  any  military  title,  the  official  robe  or  coro- 


234  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

net  bestowed  by  the  Eoman  Emperor  long  after  the 
Empire  itself  had  been  humiliated  by  disasters,  dis- 
sensions, and  defeats,  was  prized  by  a  Gothic  or  Frank- 
ish  chief  as  a  dignity  that  no  barbarian  rank  or  mere 
success  of  arms  could  possibly  give.  To  go  no  further 
back,  the  truculent  Clovis,  who  did  not  scruple  to 
cleave  the  skull  of  foe  or  kindred  with  his  own  battle- 
axe,  took  a  serious  and  solemn  delight  in  the  title 
Patrician  sent  him  by  the  Emperor  of  the  East ;  he 
clothed  himself  with  the  purple  robe,  paraded  on 
horseback  with  ring  and  coronet,  and  scattered  with 
his  own  hand  among  the  crowd  gold  and  silver  coins 
which  he  had  caused  to  be  struck,  with  the  Emperor's 
image  on  one  side,  and  his  own  name  as  Consul  and 
Augustus  on  the  other.  Not  that  it  added  anything 
to  his  power.  As  chief  of  the  Frank  confederacy  he 
was  no  doubt  stronger,  at  any  rate  felt  himself  to  be, 
than  Anastasius  on  his  distant  throne.  But  the  patri- 
cian rank  and  name  gave  him  something  that  barbar- 
ism could  not  give,  —  the  prestige  and  sanction  of  an 
authority  linked  with  the  memories  and  upheld  by 
the  sanctities  of  a  thousand  years. 

This  reverence  for  Eoman  prestige  and  authority 
became  a  tradition  with  the  Frankish  house,  alonsj 
with  their  fierce  zeal  for  the  orthodox  faith.  And  it 
is  curious  to  see,  a  few  generations  later,  how  the  rude 
affectation  of  Eoman  dignity  by  the  long-haired  Mero- 
vingian kings,  who  clad  themselves  in  royal  robes  and 
rode  in  state  carriages  drawn  by  oxen,  ruined  them 
with  their  turbulent  subjects ;  who  speedily  adopted 
for  their  kings  such  real  chiefs  as  Charles  Martel  and 
his  shrewd,  strong-handed  son  Pepin.     So  the  long- 


DONATION   OF  PEPIN.  235 

haired  race  of  "  do-nothing  "  sovereigns  passed  away, 
and  Pepin  was  crowned  king  by  the  hand  of  Boniface, 
with  the  blessing  of  the  Pope.  Meanwhile  the  Em- 
peror at  Constantinople  had  since  the  fall  of  the 
Western  Empire  held  out  the  shadowy  sceptre  of 
authority  over  Italy  and  the  West,  claiming  the  Pope 
as  subject.  But  Ravenna,  his  Italian  capital,  had 
been  swept  up  in  the  Lombard  kingdom ;  and  Pepin, 
who  as  the  Pope's  ally  had  beaten  back  the  Lombards, 
made  over  to  the  Pope  the  temporal  rule  of  the  terri- 
tory about  Rome.  So  the  Head  of  the  Church  became 
an  Italian  prince.  The  celebrated  "  Donation  "  of  Pe- 
pin thus  founded  the  temporal  sovereignty  of  the  Pope 
(755),  which  lasted  eleven  hundred  years,  till  it  was 
absorbed,  in  1870,  into  the  new  Kingdom  of  Italy. 

This  rapid  recital  is  not  meant  for  history,  but  to 
give  the  point  of  view  and  the  point  of  time  we  have 
reached,  at  the  moment  of  founding  the  Christian 
Empire  of  the  West.  Our  business  is  not  with  the 
historical  incidents,  but  with  the  policy,  the  aim,  the 
ideal,  that  lay  in  the  mind  of  the  actors ;  that  gave 
direction  to  one  of  the  most  momentous  revolutions 
and  shape  to  one  of  the  greatest  political  constructions 
that  have  been  brought  about  in  human  affairs. 

It  is  one  of  the  happiest  accidents  of  history  that 
associates  the  imposing  personality  of  Charlemagne  * 
with  this  transition,  and  has  made  the  title  "great" 

*  It  has  come  to  be  the  fashion  among  historians  to  speak  of 
him  simply  by  his  personal  name,  Charles  or  Karl.  But,  as  Head 
of  the  revived  Empire  of  the  West,  implying  not  only  an  actual 
but  a  typical  or  ideal  sovereignty,  it  seems  best  to  retain  that  by 
which  he  is  most  easily  distinguished,  which  Mr.  Freeman  would 
restrict  to  the  Charlemagne  of  legend  and  romance. 


236  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

a  part  of  the  very  name  by  which  he  is  known.  The 
immediate  circumstances  that  brought  him  to  the 
spot  where  his  colossal  figure  stands  like  a  monument 
at  the  boundary  of  two  ages  were  tragic,  even  some- 
what pitiful,  as  most  things  look  when  seen  too 
nearly.  The  revolution  did  not  take  place  without 
violence  and  parties  in  the  Church.  Leo  III.  had 
been  attacked  in  some  street  procession,  dragged  from 
his  horse,  thrown  into  prison,  and  nearly  killed  by  the 
cruel  hands  that  clumsily  tried  to  blind  him  and  cut 
out  his  tongue,  and  so  disqualify  him  by  personal  mu- 
tilation from  holding  the  priestly  office.  He  had  taken 
refuge  with  Charles  in  France;  and  the  strong  hand 
of  Charles  had  set  him  back  securely  in  his  place. 

The  next  year  —  it  was  Christmas,  of  the  year  800 
—  Charles  visited  him  in  Rome;  and,  as  he  knelt  at 
the  high  altar  of  St.  Peter's  in  the  vesper  service,  Leo 
put  on  his  head  the  imperial  crown,  and  the  people 
joined  in  the  salutation :  To  Charles  crowned  of  God 
Augustus,  great  and  peace-giving  Emperor  of  the  Ro- 
mans, life  and  victory  !  This  was  the  first  act  of  con- 
secration of  the  "  Holy  Roman  Empire,"  whose  course, 
parallel  with  that  of  the  Church,  fills  the  central  space 
of  mediaeval  history,  and  whose  stately  name,  veiling 
a  thin  phantom  of  its  authority,  was  not  abolished 
till  after  more  than  a  thousand  years,  when  Xapoleon 
compelled  Francis  of  Austria  to  abdicate  the  title, 
holding  himself,  by  force  of  his  own  arm,  to  be  the 
true  and  legitimate  successor  of  Charlemagne. 

At  heart,  Charles  was  no  Roman  patrician,  but  a 
German  chief.  He  delighted  in  border  forays  and 
border  tales.      He  gathered  with  a  careful  fondness 


CHAELEMAGNE.  237 

the  native  German  ballads.  He  lived  the  free  life  of 
a  huntsman  in  the  woods,  when  not  in  the  stir  of 
camp  or  court.  He  ranged  incessantly  from  place  to 
place  in  his  wide  ill-defined  dominion,  choosing  for 
his  capital  not  the  royal  town  of  Paris,  much  less 
Eome,  but  Aachen  (Aix-la-Chapelle),  near  his  most 
turbulent  frontier,  where  he  died,  and  where  his  sep- 
ulchre remains  until  this  day.  He  bore  with  an  ill 
grace  the  theatrical  pomps  and  splendors  of  his  office, 
—  unless  it  might  be  to  rival  in  public  ceremonial 
the  state  of  some  distant  sovereign  whose  embassy 
was  waiting  on  him.  Only  twice  in  his  life  he  put 
on  the  cumbrous  robes  of  Eoman  majesty,  preferring 
the  Gallic  trousers  and  the  loose  sheep-skin  jacket  of 
his  easy-going  home-life. 

He  chafed,  too,  under  the  rigid  rules  of  church-dis- 
cipline,—  that  is,  if  he  submitted  to  it  at  all.  His 
household  was  no  model  of  manners  or  morals  ;  he 
was  at  best  an  easy,  fond,  indulgent  father,  with  a 
heart  more  large  than  wise ;  and  he  never  quite  gave 
up  the  qnasi-polygamy  which  had  made  the  old 
scandal  of  Frankish  chiefs.  His  broad,  bluff,  generous 
humor,  too,  no  doubt  scandalized  and  perplexed  his 
spiritual  instructors ;  though  there  was  nothing  that 
kept  him  nearer  the  heart  of  his  own  people,  or  that 
we  find  it  easier  to  pardon :  no  precisian  or  martinet, 
but  a  large-souled  and  whole-souled  man. 

To  these  traits  we  should  add  the  immense  exter- 
nal activity  of  his  long  reign  :  *  relief  of  Eome  from 
Lombard  pressure,  till  that  kingdom  was  extinguished 
in  774 ;  war  against  the  Saracens  in  Spain,  where  the 
*  Of  forty-six  years,  extending  in  all  from  768  to  814. 


238  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

hero  Roland,  favorite  of  romance,  fell  in  the  retreat 
at  Eoncesvalles ;  thirty-three  campaigns  across  the 
Rhine,  mainly  against  the  pagan  Saxons,  who  were 
not  reduced  till  after  forty-five  hundred  prisoners 
had  been  slaughtered  in  one  bloody  act  of  reprisal, 
and  ten  thousand  families,  a  third  of  the  population, 
dispersed  in  colonies  in  the  heart  of  France.  So  the 
conqueror  finished  what  the  monk  began. 

The  toils  of  war  are  even  outdone  by  the  restless 
industry  of  his"  administration.  This  shows  the 
minute  organizing  of  a  civilized  state,  just  emerging 
from  rude  disorder.  He  orders  tithes  to  be  given  to 
the  churches ;  standard  weights  and  measures  to  be 
kept ;  vines  to  be  especially  attended  to ;  shelter  for 
cattle,  sheep,  swine,  and  goats  to  be  prepared  in  every 
village.  He  gives  special  directions  for  the  care  of 
stables,  the  curing  of  provisions,  and  the  furnishing 
of  houses,  not  neglecting  the  condition  of  stock  and 
crops,  or  the  price  of  eggs  and  poultry.  He  attends 
to  the  keeping  and  training  of  hawks  and  hounds ; 
directs  the  great  wolf-hunts,  when  and  how  they  shall 
be  carried  on,  the  skins  to  be  exhibited  to  him ;  and 
the  housekeepers  on  his  estates  must  understand 
making  cider,  beer,  and  perry.  I  have  counted  a  list 
of  more  than  a  hundred  herbs  and  fruit-trees  which  he 
desires  always  to  have  kept  in  the  imperial  gardens* 
Some  of  the  largest  stones  used  in  building  his  own 
cathedral  at  Aachen,  it  is  said,  he  bent  his  sturdy 
frame  to  bear.  Messengers  in  his  name  must  visit 
every  district  four  times  a  year,  to  correct  or  at  least 
report  all  irregularity.  Every  estate  of  a  given  size 
*  See  the  Capitulary  De  Villis  Imperialibus,  a.  d.  812,  §  70. 


PERSONAL   GOVERNMENT  OF  THE   EMPEROR.      239 

must  send  one  man  to  serve  in  the  public  defence. 
Kules  equally  vigilant  and  precise  lay  down  the  duty 
of  the  local  clergy,  or  order  periodical  visits  of  the 
bishop.  He  is  as  prompt  to  supersede  a  churchman 
as  an  army  officer,  when  found  guilty  of  gross  neglect.* 
It  is  necessary  to  speak  of  these  personal  cares  of 
office,  because  the  government  had  to  be  personal  in 
the  strictest  sense.  Most  likely,  there  was  no  other 
mind  clear  enough  to  see  the  need,  or  conscience  to 
feel  the  burden,  any  more  than  there  was  another 
hand  strong  enough  to  do  the  task.  The  weight  of 
that  great  personality  is  felt  all  the  more,  that  his 
empire  fell  to  pieces  so  soon  after  his  death.  In  one 
sense  it  was  premature,  an  experiment  that  had  to 
fail.  The  mere  fact  that  he  carried  all  that  weight 
would  help  to  keep  any  other  from  growing  up  fit  to 
bear  it  after  him.  The  real  organization  of  European 
society,  which  he  attempted  so  heroically,  had  to 
come  about  at  a  later  age.  The  unwieldy  empire 
had  to  be  broken  up  in  fragments,  so  that  a  new 

*  Thus  in  the  first  of  his  Capitularies,  §§  6,  7  :  "  We  ordain  that, 
according  to  the  canons,  every  bishop  shall  give  heed  within  his 
own  charge,  that  the  people  of  God  do  no  pagan  rites;  but  that 
they  reject  and  put  away  all  defilement  of  the  gentiles,  —  profane 
sacrifices  for  the  dead,  or  fortune-tellers  or  diviners,  or  amulets 
and  charms,  or  incantations,  or  immolating  of  victims,  which  fool- 
ish people  do  near  churches  with  pagan  rite  in  the  name  of  holy 
martyrs  or  confessors  of  the  Lord ;  who  invite  their  saints  rather 
to  wrath  than  mercy.  We  advise  that  each  year  every  bishop 
shall  carefully  visit  his  charge  in  circuit,  and  endeavor  to  confirm, 
instruct,  and  watch  the  people,  and  forbid  pagan  rites,  diviners, 
fortune-tellers,  auguries,  amulets,  incantations,  and  all  defilements 
of  the  gentiles."  Churchmen  are  forbidden  (Capit.  Ann.  781)  to 
keep  hawks  or  hounds,  —  the  latter,  lest  those  who  appeal  for  char- 
ity should  be  "  torn  by  the  bite  of  dogs." 


240  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

structure  might  strike  innumerable  roots  into  the 
soil,  and  grow  up  in  innumerable  independent  shoots. 
The  great  need  then  was  that  the  ideal  of  an  orderly 
and  Christian  State  should  be  conceived  in  one  pow- 
erful mind,  and  its  foundations  should  be  laid  by  one 
strong  hand.  The  events  of  Charles's  reign,  and  its 
inordinate  activities,  are  the  mere  incidents  and  sur- 
roundings of  the  great  work  he  really  did,  in  creating 
such  an  ideal  of  Christian  sovereignty. 

That  this  ideal  lay  very  close  to  his  heart,  and  was 
always  present  to  his  thought,  —  whatever  the  defects 
of  its  carrying-out,  —  appears  in  one  very  interesting 
trait  recorded  by  Eginhard.  "  He  took  delight,"  he 
says,  "  in  the  books  of  St.  Augustine,  and  especially  in 
those  which  are  entitled  Of  the  City  of  God"  which 
were  read  to  him  at  meal-time.  Those  books,  it  is 
true,  do  not  give  any  plan  or  pattern  of  a  Christian 
State  to  be  realized  on  earth,  such  as  we  might  pos- 
sibly expect.  But  they  set  forth  with  great  em- 
phasis the  contrast  of  right  and  wrong,  of  the  state 
sacred  and  profane.  They  put  in  strong  light  the 
corruption  and  violence  that  had  destroyed  the  Pagan 
Empire  ;  they  bring  into  equal  relief  the  virtues  of 
the  Divine  Kingdom,  and  the  peace  that  grows  out 
of  them.  They  set  forth  vividly  the  warning  given  in 
the  fall  of  Eome,  crushed  under  its  own  vices  and 
feuds  long  before  the  assault  of  barbarian  arms. 
And,  from  the  hint  just  given,  as  well  as  from  the 
incessant  coupling  of  religious  things  with  secular  in 
his  laws,  it  is  likely  that  these  lessons  and  these 
warnings  had  been  taken  very  much  to  heart  by 
Charles,  in  his  reflections  on  the  duties  of  empire. 


THE  IMPERIAL  IDEA.  241 

We  may  see  the  same  thing,  perhaps,  in  his  shrink- 
ing from  those  duties  and  from  the  name  of  Emperor. 
His  coronation  took  him  by  surprise.  He  protested, 
says  his  biographer,  that  he  would  not  have  gone  to 
the  church  that  day,  if  he  had  known  what  Leo  had 
in  store  for  him.  Possibly  his  sagacity  foresaw  the 
use  that  would  be  made  of  that  act  by  Leo's  succes- 
sors, to  bolster  up  their  enormous  claim  that  the 
Empire  itself  was  in  their  gift,  to  bestow  or  revoke  as 
their  policy  might  demand.  It  has  been  noticed  that 
an  interval  of  more  than  a  year  passed,  before  he 
claimed  allegiance  as  Emperor ;  and  then  he  stays  to 
explain  "  how  many  and  how  great  things  are  com- 
prehended in  that  vow :  not  merely,  as  many  even 
now  suppose,  to  the  lord  Emperor  in  his  own  lifetime, 
and  not  to  bring  any  enemy  for  hostility  within  his 
realm,  and  not  take  part  in  or  conceal  any  one's  infi- 
delity towards  him  ;  but  that  every  man  may  know 
that  this  vow  has  bearing  direct  upon  himself  " ;  and 
so  he  goes  on,  in  forty  chapters,  to  recite  a  whole 
code  of  civil  and  religious  duty.* 

That  rude  time  could  not  show  any  very  flattering 
fulfilment  of  such  an  ideal.  But  there  is  no  question 
that  the  reign  of  Charlemagne  did  very  much  to 
stamp  that  conception  on  the  general  mind  ;  to  make 
it  part  of  the  notion  of  what  a  state  should  be,  as  well 
as  to  enshrine  him  in  memory  as  a  sort  of  model  sov- 
ereign. There  have  been  many  emperors  and  kings 
who  have  come  nearer  the  commonly  received  pat- 
tern of  Christian  living ;  but  not  one  so  dignified  or 
idealized  in  the  imagination  of  the  world.    The  Church 

*  See  the  24  Sections  of  the  Capitulary  dated  at  Aachen,  802. 
11  p 


242  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

puts  him  in  the  next  rank  to  saintship,  and  in  some 
countries  he  has  been  frankly  reverenced  as  a  saint. 
Miracles  are  recorded  to  have  been  wrought  at  his 
tomb.  Within  a  century  of  his  death  he  is  made  the 
hero  of  legend  and  marvel,  and  volumes  of  popular 
romance  already  gather  about  his  name.  His  mili- 
tary adventures  are  transfigured  to  make  him  the 
ideal  Champion  of  Christendom,  carrying  his  con- 
quests as  far  as  Jerusalem,  as  the  great  typical  Cru- 
sader. And  he  is  so  appealed  to  in  the  oration  by 
which  Urban  II.  stirred  the  multitude  at  Clermont  to 
the  first  Crusade  (1094). 

The  real  man,  in  his  hearty  humor,  his  rude  sports, 
his  cordial  loves  and  enmities,  and  his  serious  wish 
to  do  his  work,  is  a  much  more  interesting  person 
than  this  fabulous  ideal.  His  traits  are  known  to  us, 
as  few  men's  are  of  a  former  age,  by  personal  descrip- 
tion and  admiring  anecdote.  I  copy  here  a  few 
sentences  from  his  friend,  favorite  secretary,  and 
biographer,  Eginhard,  —  the  hero  of  the  romantic  tale 
which  tells  how  he  won  the  love  of  his  sovereign's 
stalwart  daughter,  and  how  she  once  carried  him  on 
her  shoulder  from  a  stolen  visit,  lest  his  footsteps 
should  betray  him  in  the  new-fallen  snow :  — 

"  In  eloquence  he  was  copious  and  ample,  well  able 
to  express  plainly  whatever  he  would.  Not  content 
with  his  native  speech,  he  bestowed  pains  in  learning 
foreign  tongues.  Latin  he  could  speak  as  well  as  his 
mother  tongue  ;  Greek  he  could  understand  better  than 
pronounce.  He  was  so  ready  of  speech  that  one  might 
think  him  a  schoolmaster.  He  studiously  cherished 
liberal  arts,  and  bestowed  the  highest  honors  on  the 


CARE  OF  EDUCATION  AND   CULTURE.  243 

teachers  of  them.  A  great  deal  of  time  and  labor  he 
spent  in  learning  rhetoric  and  logic,  and  particularly 
astronomy.  He  learned  the  art  of  reckoning,  and  with 
eager  curiosity  would  trace  the  path  of  the  stars.  He 
made  attempts  to  write,  and  used  to  carry  tablets  or 
bits  of  bark,  or  keep  them  under  his  pillow,  that  he 
might  practise  his  hand  at  odd  times  in  shaping  out  the 
letters  ;  but  this  late  and  unseasonable  effort  had  poor 
success.  As  long  as  health  permitted,  he  promptly 
attended  church,  morning  and  evening,  even  in  the 
night  at  time  of  service,  and  took  great  care  that  all 
should  be  done  decently  and  in  order ;  and  with  great 
diligence  he  improved  the  style  of  reading  and  chant- 
ing. He  was  well  skilled  in  both;  though  he  never 
read  in  public  himself,  and  only  sang  softly,  and  in  con- 
cert with  others." 

Some  copies  add  that  he  furnished  eight  hundred 
and  eighty-six  churches  at  his  own  expense,  and 
restored  in  all  three  thousand  seven  hundred.  He 
gathered  about  him  learned  men  and  artists,  tiring 
them  out  with  his  incessant  activity  (says  Guizot), 
and  through  them  giving  strong  impulse  to  every  form 
of  culture.  His  imperial  title  challenged  the  regard 
of  other  powers.  Irene,  reigning  Empress  of  Con- 
stantinople, proposed  to  unite  East  and  West  by  mar- 
riage, having  already  been  the  death  of  her  husband 
and  son  ;  an  alliance  which  Charles  discreetly  but 
firmly  declined.  From  Haroun-al-Easchid,  Caliph  of 
Bagdad,  he  received  an  embassy,  bringing,  along  with 
command  of  the  Holy  Places,  rich  Oriental  gifts,  — 
the  first  elephant  ever  seen  in  France,*  with  a  Moorish 
lion,  a  Numidian  bear,  eastern  spiceries  and  drugs,  "  so 
*  It  arrived  at  Aachen,  July  16,  812. 


244         THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

that  the  East  might  be  thought  to  be  stripped  to  fur- 
nish out  the  West";  a  set  of  chessmen,  said  to  be  still 
preserved,  and  a  clock  of  curious  skill.  *  These  em- 
bassies marked  a  period  of  almost  universal  peace. 
Free  passage  for  western  pilgrims  was  given  to  the 
Holy  Land.  A  fair  was  held  yearly  at  Jerusalem  for 
a  fortnight,  and  arts  of  peace  flourished  from  India  to 
the  farthest  West. 

From  the  Ebro  to  the  Danube,  the  limits  of 
Charles's  empire,  the  local  names,  it  is  said,  inces- 
santly recall  his  memory ;  while  to  write  his  history 
cme  should  know  at  once  the  mountain-passes  of 
Spain  and  the  Alps,  the  Lombard  towns,  the  old 
monuments  of  France,  and  the  legends  of  the  Ehine. 
His  traditional  beard  and  sceptre  are  travestied  in 
the  popular  figure  of  the  King  at  cards,  f  Or,  to  see 
the  same  figure  on  a  larger  canvas,  barbarian  tribes 
(it  is  said)  in  their  rude  traditions  keep  the  memory 
of  three  great  conquerors  —  Timour  the  Tartar,  Alex- 
ander, and  Charlemagne. 

But  the  interesting  and  instructive  thing  to  us  is 
to  see  how  far  we  have  got  in  the  development  of  the 
Christian  idea.  And  we  find  that  we  have  got  so  far 
as  this.  Organized  Christianity  has  completed  its 
period  of  struggle  and  conquest.     It  has  definitely 

*  At  the  twelve  figures  were  twelve  little  doors,  which  opened 
successively,  letting  drop  so  many  balls  to  strike  the  hour ;  and 
when  the  circle  was  finished,  a  row  of  little  knights  in  ivory 
passed  round  and  closed  them  all.  The  last  two  are  not  included 
in  the  documents  of  the  Monumenla  Carolina. 

t  The  game  was  invented  to  cheer  the  moody  insanity  of 
Charles  VI.  of  France ;  and  this  unhappy  prince,  it  is  said,  always 
crossed  himself  when  he  touched  the  picture  of  the  emperor-saint. 


LATER  FORTUNES   OF  THE   EMPIRE.  245 

superseded  those  old  forms  of  Pagan  society  which 
had  tried  so  hard  to  destroy  it.  What  was  worth 
saving  in  those  old  forms  it  has  adopted  into  itself : 
something  of  the  old  art  and  culture,  all  the  old  ex- 
ecutive and  organizing  skill.  It  has  persevered,  with 
incredible  energy  and  patience,  till  the  intelligence 
and  heart  of  pagan  barbarism  have  been  brought  dis- 
tinctly to  accept  the  Christian  ideal  and  the  Christian 
law.  That  law  and  that  ideal  it  has  now  succeeded 
in  implanting  in  the  thought  and  embodying  in  the 
institutions  of  an  Empire  which  distinctly  adopts 
them  as  its  own.  This  one  moment  has  been  achieved 
of  absolute  coincidence  and  harmony  between  the  two 
great  powers,  spiritual  and  temporal,  that  together 
rule  the  world.  It  is  but  for  a  moment ;  but  it  marks 
the  passage  to  the  next  great  era,  when  the  task  is 
no  longer  conquest,  but  administration ;  when  it  is 
not  an  army  or  a  campaign  we  have  to  do  with,  but 
a  government  and  a  constitution. 

A  word  remains  to  be  said  of  the  fortunes  of  the 
Christian  Empire  founded  by  Charlemagne.  That 
perfect  harmony  of  interest  and  motive  between 
Church  and  State  which  made  its  ideal*  could  be  at 
best  but  for  a  moment  of  unstable  equilibrium.  On 
one  side  violences  and  passions  thinly  covered,  on  the 
other  natural  jealousies  and  honest  fears,  were  enough 
to  dissolve  an  alliance  which  was  the  harder  to  keep 
the  closer  it  had  been  knit.  These  are  fatal  dissolv- 
ing forces  in  all  human  things.     But,  besides  these,  a 

*  This  ideal  theory  of  sovereignty  makes  the  argument  of  Dante's 
De  Monarchid.  It  is  amply  stated  and  illustrated  in  Bryce's  "  Holy 
Koman  Empire,"  pp.  102-108  (7th  ed.). 


246  THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

great  political  revolution  was  impending,  which  the 
Church  must  have  seen  with  terror ;  which  it  met,  at 
any  rate,  with  masterly  determination  and  craft.  The 
constitution  that  made  its  political  scheme  through 
seven  centuries  was  founded  on  forged  decretal  and 
canon  law.  Its  theory  was  Sacerdotalism,  the  abso- 
lute sanctity,  immunity,  and  authority  of  the  priestly 
Order.  True  to  that  theory,  it  would  have  overridden 
and  absorbed  all  other  power  whatsoever.  It  would 
have  established  a  universal  Empire,  supreme  to 
men's  thought  in  heaven,  earth,  and  hell,  and  so 
laid  mankind  helpless  at  the  feet  of  ecclesiastical 
absolutism. 

When  the  political  fabric  that  Charles  had  pain- 
fully built  together  was  broken  up,  in  the  great 
change  we  call  the  rise  of  Feudalism,  the  Church  held 
to  its  theory ;  and,  after  an  age  of  incredible  corrup- 
tion and  disorder,  declared  open  war  upon  the  State. 
The  Empire,  which  was  in  theory  one,  holy,  and  indis- 
soluble, ally  and  partner  with  the  Church  in  the  great 
work  of  civilization,  was  matched  against  it  in  an  ob- 
stinate and  bitter  struggle  of  near  two  hundred  years. 
Its  title  of  "  Holy  Eoman  Empire,"  and  its  claim  to 
dominion  over  Italy,  were  maintained  by  a  long  line 
of  German  kings.  The  proudest-tempered  of  them 
all,  Henry  IV.,  wore  himself  out  to  beggary  and  death 
(1073-1106)  in  a  struggle  with  Hildebrand  and  the 
successors  trained  in  the  school  of  Hildebrand.  The 
greatest  of  them  all,  Frederick  Barbarossa,  bent  his 
stubborn  will  to  beg  peace  of  Alexander  III.,  and 
his  terrible  Italian  campaigns  closed  in  the  dra- 
matic scene  of  his  humiliation  before  the  Pope  at 


SPIRITUAL  AND   TEMPORAL   SOVEREIGNTY.        247 

Venice  (1177).  The  most  brilliant  and  accomplished 
of  them  all,  Frederick  II.,  found  himself  thwarted 
and  foiled  at  every  hand  by  that  stern  old  man,  of 
nearly  ninety,  who  ruled  as  Gregory  IX.  (1227-1241), 
and  held  him  under  the  invisible  spell  of  excommuni- 
cation. 

That  close  alliance  of  Church  and  Empire  was  a 
dream,  out  of  which  both  awoke,  to  find  themselves 
deadly  enemies.     It  need  not  have  been  so,  perhaps, 
if  the  boundaries  of  secular  and  spiritual  power  had 
been  more   clearly  drawn  and  honestly  kept.     Un- 
questionably, the  Empire  observed  those  bounds  bet- 
ter than  its  ghostly  rival.     There  was  a  political  order, 
a  secular  justice,  a  national  independence,  which  in 
good  faith  it  made  many  efforts  to  establish.     Tempo- 
ral sovereignty,  dealing  with  secular  conditions  only, 
may  be  fairly  just ;  spiritual  sovereignty,  in  human 
hands,  is  necessarily  tyrannical.     A  theory  of  suprem- 
acy was  growing  up  within  the  Church,  assiduously 
developed,  incessantly  urged  and  pressed,  resting  on 
the    deep    foundations   of   imagination  and  religious 
fear,  which  held  that  all  human  government  existed 
only  by  its  sufferance  ;  which  would  have  made  any 
independence  in  the  State,  nay,  any  decent  secular 
government  at  all,  impossible. 

Such  as  it  was,  however,  after  the  fall  of  the  great 
imperial  houses,  the  Holy  Roman  Empire  retained 
almost  to  our  own  day  something  of  its  sanctity  and 
prestige.  A  few  great  names  —  the  names  of  Rodolph 
and  Sigismund,  of  Maximilian  and  Charles  the  Fifth 
—  illustrate  its  later  fortunes.  But  in  the  great 
dynastic  wars  and  political  revolutions  its  splendor 


248         THE  HOLY  ROMAN  EMPIRE. 

steaclil}7  faded  out.  Other  forces  held  the  field.  Dig- 
nity was  left  it  when  its  strength  decayed.  A  phan- 
tom of  authority  long  survived  the  substance  of  power. 
And  no  shock  was  felt  in  the  political  system  when 
Napoleon,  who  had  seized  the  imperial  name  as  the 
symbol  of  his  conquests,  compelled  the  last  heir  of 
Augustus,  of  Constantine,  of  Charlemagne,  to  abdi- 
cate the  title  in  1806,  and  the  Holy  Eoman  Empire 
was  no  more. 


XII. 
THE  CHRISTIAN  SCHOOLS. 

I  1ST  a  poetical  "  Lament "  on  the  division  of  the  Em- 
pire after  the  death  of  Louis  the  Pious,  the 
writer  speaks  of  the  good  time  past,  when  "  a  noble 
realm  wore  its  bright  diadem  as  a  wreath ;  when  there 
was  one  Prince,  and  one  subject  people  ;  when  all  cities 
flourished  under  one  law  and  judgment;  citizens  were 
bound  in  peace,  the  enemy  repelled  by  their  valor  "  ; 
when  "  the  cherishing  care  of  the  priesthood  was  emu- 
lous in  its  task ;  in  frequent  councils  insuring  right- 
eous laws  to  the  people ;  and  the  word  of  salvation 
sounded  from  far  to  a  holy  clergy,  to  noble  prin- 
ces, and  to  common  men  "  ;  when  "  everywhere  young 
men  learned  the  book  of  God,  and  children's  hearts 
drank  in  the  art  of  letters."  * 

*  Floras  Diaconus,  Querela  de  Divisione  Imperii  post  mortem  Ludo- 
vici  Pii :  — 

Floruit  egregio  claro  diademate  regnum  ; 
Princeps  unus  erat,  populus  quoque  subditus  unus. 
Lex  simul  et  judex  totas  ornaverat  urbes  ; 
Pax  cives  tenuit,  virtus  exterruit  hostes. 
Alma  sacerdotum  certatim  cura  vigebat, 
Conciliis  crebris,  populis  pia  jura  ministrans. 
Hinc  sacris  cleris,  hinc  plebibus  eximiisque 
Principibus  late  resonabat  sermo  salutis. 
Discebant  juvenes  divina  volumina  passim  ; 
Littereas  artes  puerorum  corda  bibebant. 
11* 


250  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

Nothing  so  softens  our  notion  of  that  rude  time  as 
to  be  reminded  in  this  way  that  there  were  tender 
thoughts  and  vigilant  care,  then  as  now,  concerning 
the  education  of  the  young.  The  time  which  this 
Christian  poet  looks  back  on  regretfully  was  when 
the  schools  flourished  under  the  vigorous  impulse  of 
Charlemagne  himself,  or  were  continued  by  his  son ; 
when  they  made,  in  one  sense,  the  crowning  work  of 
that  Christian  Empire  which  stood  in  men's  minds  as 
the  ideal  of  sovereignty. 

The  great  Emperor  had,  in  fact,  not  only  made  his 
court  the  head-quarters  of  learning  at  that  day,  sparing 
no  cost  to  bring  together  eminent  scholars  like  Alcuin 
and  Eginhard ;  but  he  took  delight  in  directing  him- 
self the  instruction  of  children,  examined  their  classes, 
heard  their  essays,  promised  rewards  to  the  diligent, 
or  menaced  the  idle  with  the  loss  of  all  his  favor ;  and 
even  undertook  the  task  of  superintending  or  (it  is 
said)  practising  with  his  own  hand  the  copying  and 
elaborate  ornamentation  of  manuscripts.  Under  the 
same  powerful  impulse,  a  great  work  of  editing  went 
on ;  and  famous  writings  were  cleared  of  the  blots 
and  blunders  that  had  grown  upon  them  in  the  ruder 
times  that  went  before.  So  that  we  have  to  look  upon 
this  period  as  an  early  revival  of  letters.  It  gathered 
up  on  one  hand  whatever  could  be  gathered  from  the 
past;  and,  on  the  other,  it  planted  the  seeds  of  a 
new,  vigorous,  and  remarkable  growth  of  independent 
thought. 

o 

These  two  views,  then,  remain  to  be  taken  of  the 
Christian  Schools  of  the  ninth  century :  first,  looking 
to  the  past,  as  they  represented  the  learning  and  cul- 


THE  CLASSIC  TRADITION.  251 

ture  of  the  barbaric  age ;  next,  looking  to  the  future, 
as  they  opened  the  way  to  a  new  development  of 
thought.  The  first  must  be  treated  very  briefly ;  the 
second,  in  a  little  more  detail. 

The  first  thing  we  have  to  conceive,  then,  as  dis- 
tinctly as  we  can,  is  the  course  of  that  unbroken 
stream  of  tradition,  which  had  floated  down  the  germs 
of  ancient  culture  through  what  we  call  the  Dark 
Ages.  So  far  as  this  term  is  a  fit  one  to  use  at  all,  it 
belongs  to  the  period  from  the  latter  part  of  the  fifth 
century  to  near  the  end  of  the  eighth  ;  that  is,  from 
the  time  of  Leo  the  Great  to  that  of  Charlemagne.* 
In  Leo's  time,  we  saw  the  great  vigor  of  the  pagan 
reaction  in  art  and  letters ;  and  we  know  the  obsti- 
nacy of  the  pagan  tradition  in  the  world  of  imagina- 
tion and  poetry,  down  to  a  very  late  clay.  In  fact, 
what  we  call  the  classical  school,  as  distinct  from  the 
romantic,  holds  avowedly  to  that  tradition,  even  now. 

The  reasons  of  this  immense  vitality  of  the  pagan 
classic  thought  lie  deeper  than  we  are  apt  to  think. 
It  may  perhaps  be  more  accurate  to  say  that  they  are 
strown  thicker  upon  the  surface,  and  are  more  care- 
fully worked  into  the  soil,  than  we  are  apt  to  think. 
If  we  subtract  from  the  school  system  of  the  present 
day  what  belongs  properly  to  our  own  time,  —  as 
modern  history,  science,  and  literature,  —  we  still  see 
how  great  a  space  is  left,  in  what  most  strongly  affects 
the  habit  of  mind,  to  the  purely  traditional  culture  of 

*  The  tenth  century,  it  is  true,  is  in  a  sort  of  eclipse,  deeper 
perhaps  than  the  darkness  of  either  of  the  preceding;  but  this 
appears  to  be  from  moral  or  social  causes  rather  than  intellectual. 
What  we  may  call  the  Catholic  philosophy  had,  at  all  events,  been 
well  established  in  the  ninth. 


252  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

ancient  languages  and  formal  grammar.  We  may- 
even  doubt  whether  the  most  powerful  educational 
influences,  even  now,  do  not  run  in  the  old  channel, 
in  our  own  best  schools  and  colleges.  Every  educa- 
tional reformer  has  been  astonished,  if  not  staggered, 
at  the  dead-weight  of  resistance  he  has  encountered 
from  classic  prejudice. 

It  is,  really,  the  momentum  of  more  than  two  thou- 
sand years'  unbroken  tradition  that  we  are  dealing 
with.  The  methods  we  use  to-day,  if  not  the  same 
with,  were  at  least  developed  step  by  step  from,  the 
methods  of  children's  schools  in  Athens  and  in  Eome. 
Our  best  instruction  in  morals  is  exactly  what  we  find 
in  Plato's  Lysis;  the  forms  of  words,  the  logic  of 
structure,  that  we  teach  now,  are  the  same  that  chil- 
dren were  drilled  in,  conscientiously,  in  the  Eoman 
imperial  schools.  The  same  rules  and  forms  were 
carefully  instilled  as  school-rudiments,  the  same  lit- 
erary tradition  was  sacredly  held  fast,  in  all  the  ages 
that  followed.  They  were  retained  with  a  clinging 
and  (as  it  were)  desperate  tenacity  through  the  bar- 
barian times,  as  if  there  were  some  peculiar  sanctity 
in  this  one  living  link  of  connection  with  the  ancient 
splendor.  When  Eome  was  almost  famished,  beg- 
gared, and  depopulated,  there  was  still  heart  left  to 
celebrate  a  literary  holiday.  On  one  occasion  a  new 
poem  —  a  versifying  of  the  Book  of  Acts  —  had  to  be 
recited  in  public  seven  times  over,  occupying  many 
days  in  all,  to  satisfy  crowds  that  could  not  all  hear  at 
once,  and  that  insisted  on  the  repeating  of  favorite 
passages.  And,  as  Eome  impressed  the  barbarian 
imagination  in  other  ways,  so  it  imposed  respect  for 


CASSIODORUS.  253 

ancient  letters,  mixed  possibly  with  a  little  awe. 
When  the  Goths  were  masters  of  Italy,  it  was  pub- 
licly ordered  (about  530)  that  the  revenues  of  the 
public  schools  should  be  untouched.  All  else  was 
fair  plunder  in  the  rage  of  conquest ;  but  the  generous 
barbarian  would  not  take  away  what  was  to  feed  the 
life  of  coming  generations.* 

It  would  not  be  hard,  though  it  might  be  pedantic, 
to  trace  the  series  of  names  that  make  an  unbroken 
chain  through  the  centuries  of  barbarism.  I  shall 
mention  only  two  or  three. 

Cassiodorus,  who  lived,  according  to  some  accounts, 
to  the  great  age  of  a  hundred  (463-5  6  3), f  has  been 
called  the  chief  instructor  of  the  barbarian  world.  He 
more  than  any  other  is  the  visible  link  between  the 
old  world  of  culture  and  the  new.  Till  the  age  of 
seventy  he  was  the  confidential  minister  of  Theodoric 
and  his  successor,  Gothic  kings  of  Italy ;  and  his  cor- 
respondence, under  their  names,  is  the  best  picture 
we  have  of  that  period  of  change.  In  particular,  there 
are  two  letters  addressed  to  BoethiusJ  the  honored 
counsellor  and  afterwards  the  victim  of  Theodoric, 
which  give  a  lively  notion  of  the  skill  and  intelli- 
gence of  the  age.  One  is  in  praise  of  music;  one 
commissions  him  to  send  gifts  to  a  Burgunclian  prince, 
a  sun-dial  and  a  water-clock ;  and  he  takes  occasion 
to  enlarge  on  these  marvels  of  science,  as  we  might  on 
the  electric  light  or  the  telephone.  Evidently  the 
argument  is  addressed  not  to  Boethius,  the  most  cul- 

*  Cassiodorus,  Epist,  ix.  21.  Compare  Ozanam,  Civilisation  des 
Francs. 

t  More  probably  468-563.  %  Lib.  i.  45 ;  ii.  40. 


254  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

tivated  man  of  his  age,  but  to  the  imagination  of  rude, 
eager,  curious  men,  such  as  made  up  these  nations  of 
invaders.  In  the  tumult  and  ruin  of  the  time,  it  is 
pathetic  to  see  this  eager  clinging  to  the  wealth  of  in- 
telligence and  art  that  seemed  drifting  to  hopeless 
wreck.  It  was  carrying  on  the  same  task  in  another 
way,  when  in  his  old  age  Cassiodorus  withdrew  to  a 
monastery  of  Southern  Italy,  and  spent  his  thirty  re- 
maining years  in  arranging,  copying,  correcting,  restor- 
ing the  treasures  of  classic  learning,  and  in  preparing 
the  manuals  of  instruction  that  were  of  chief  authority 
in  the  schools  for  the  next  few  centuries. 

I  have  already  spoken  of  the  Christian  poets  of  this 
dark  period  —  such  as  Prudentius,  Sidonius,  and  For- 
tunatus ;  and  of  the  pains  they  took  to  copy  the  form 
and  preserve  the  diction  of  the  Roman  writers.  We 
are  apt,  perhaps,  to  think  of  the  Latin  hymns,  from 
Ambrose  down,  in  very  simple  measures,  accented  and 
sometimes  rhymed,  as  if  they  were  the  only  poetry  of 
the  time ;  as  if  the  classical  model  had  quite  perished. 
Nothing,  on  the  contrary,  strikes  us  oftener  or  sooner 
in  looking  through  the  body  of  the  Christian  litera- 
ture, than  the  fond,  abundant,  often  skilful  handling 
of  the  metres  of  Virgil  and  Horace :  in  simple  hymns, 
in  narrative,  in  elegy,  in  familiar  playful  or  occasional 
address, —  sometimes  a  little  awkward  in  phrase,  with 
false  quantities  now  and  then  that  rasp  the  ear ;  but 
with  serious  painstaking  that  the  literary  art  should 
not  be  lost.  These  poetic  essays  belong  to  every  cen- 
tury, coming  below  the  time  and  including  the  name 
of  Charlemagne  himself,  who  was  a  diligent  learner 
in  all  arts  of  refinement,  and  whose  epitaph  on  his 


CICERO   AND  VIRGIL.  255 

personal  and  dear  friend,  Pope  Adrian  I.  (to  whom  he 
had  renewed  and  extended  his  father's  grant  in  774), 
is  but  a  specimen  of  his  very  creditable  skill.* 

Doubtless,  the  value  of  this  large  body  of  Christian 
verse  is  not  chiefly  what  it  is  in  itself  as  poetry.  It 
is  rather  a  testimony  to  the  faithful,  patient,  skilful 
school-instruction  that  w^ent  on  from  age  to  age. 
There  was  no  contempt  of  pagan  letters.  The  grave 
tone  of  Cicero's  moral  dialogues,  and  especially  the 
prophetic  strain  of  Virgil's  fourth  eclogue,  in  which 
he  predicts  a  golden  age  of  righteousness  and  peace, 
wholly  won  the  Christian  heart.  Virgil's,  it  was  said, 
was  the  golden  key  that  opened  to  all  classic  antiquity 
the  door  of  the  Mediaeval  Church.f 

Another  thing  is  very  noticeable  in  the  large  body 
of  early  Christian  literature,  —  that  is,  from  the  fifth 
century  to  the  ninth.     It  is  the  vast  amount  of  com- 

*  If  we  were  to  set  any  date  for  the  dying  out  of  the  classic 
literary  tradition,  it  would  be  that  assigned  in  the  "Lament"  al- 
ready quoted.  It  is  not  until  now  that  letters  are  quite  overlaid 
by  theology ;  it  is  not  till  about  five  centuries  later  that  that  heavy 
atmosphere  has  rolled  quite  away. 

t  This  fondness  for  the  name  and  memory  of  Virgil  is  illustrated 
in  a  legend  which  tells  how  St.  Paul,  on  landing  at  Puteoli,  went 
to  pay  his  homage  at  the  poet's  tomb.  The  following  verses  are 
said  at  one  time  to  have  been  chanted  in  the  cathedral  of 
Mantua :  — 

Ad  Maronis  mausoleum 
Ductus.fudit  super  eum 
Piae  rorem  lacrimse  : 
"  Quern  te  "  inquit  "  reddidissem, 
Si  te  vivum  invenissem, 
Poetarum  maxime  ! 

And  the  chapel  above  the  tomb  used  to  be  pointed  out  as  the  spot 
where  Virgil  went  to  hear  mass. 


256  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

nient  and  homily  on  the  books  of  Scripture,  the  only- 
recognized  authority  in  religion,  history,  or  morals; 
and  especially  dwelling  on  the  historical  record  of 
Scripture,  all  the  way  down  from  the  Creation.  In 
itself  this  is  not  surprising  in  an  age  ignorant  of 
almost  everything  else.  Still,  one  is  led  to  think 
there  was  a  motive  in  thus  incessantly  directing  the 
mind  of  barbarian  converts  to  the  detail  of  Hebrew 
annals,  often  far  from  edifying.*  This  motive  we 
shall  find,  if  we  reflect  that  those  barbarians  were 
men,  so  to  speak,  without  a  past,  —  except  it  might 
be  a  very  near  and  bloody  one.  To  the  barbarian  mind 
the  past  closes  up  behind,  like  a  bank  of  mist,  hiding 
all  but  a  few  distorted  and  exaggerated  forms.  Thus 
—  to  take  historic  examples  —  the  same  Theodoric 
whom  Cassiodorus  served,  and  the  Brunehild  who 
figures  in  the  recital  of  Gregory  of  Tours,  become 
mythologic  hero  and  heroine  in  the  Nibelungen ;  or,  to 
go  farther  back,  the  same  Odin  who  ranks  chief  among 
the  immortals  in  Scandinavian  fable  is  held  by  some 
writers  to  have  been  the  purely  human  leader  of  a 
migration  out  of  Asia  not  many  generations  before. 

This  great  void  in  the  barbaric  mind  must  be  filled, 
or  this  wild  phantasmagory  displaced,  by  the  Chris- 
tian tradition.  The  rude  tribe-life  must  be  bound  by 
religious  association  to  the  remotest  past  that  could 
be  conceived  then,  and  widened  to  the  broadest  fel- 
lowship that  might  be  consecrated  by  a  common 
origin.     Such  crude  ethnology  as  their  teachers  could 

*  Ulfilas,  in  translating  the  Bible  for  his  Gothic  converts,  omit- 
ted "  Samuel  "  and  "  Kings,"  since  the  barbarian  passion  for  fight- 
ing had  no  need  of  such  stimulus  or  sanction. 


MILDNESS    OF  THE   CATHOLIC   THEOLOGY.         257 

explain  thus  entered  as  an  element  in  that  long  task 
of  education. 

This  is  as  convenient  a  place  as  any  to  state  an 
impression  which  flatly  contradicts  the  notion  some 
of  us  have  got  from  other  sources,  as  to  the  spirit  of 
religious  teaching  in  this  period.  The  many  volumes 
—  some  scores  of  thousands  of  pages  — of  early 
Catholic  theology  leave  upon  my  mind  a  strong  feel- 
ing of  surprise  at  finding  so  little  appeal  to  the  vulgar 
terrors  of  the  future  world.  I  do  not  mean  by  this 
that  the  doctrine  implied  all  along  was  not  as  grim 
and  terrible  as  it  has  ever  been.  It  is  assumed,  we 
may  say,  as  a  matter  of  course,  that  there  is  no  salva- 
tion out  of  the  true  Church.  It  is  taken  for  granted 
that  the  penalty  of  sin  or  unbelief  is  everlasting 
death,  —  or,  a  good  deal  worse,  everlasting  torment. 
But  this  lurid  background  is  a  background  merely.  It 
is  not  forced,  as  we  might  expect,  upon  the  imagination 
of  the  believer.  Eather,  it  is  made  simply  an  appeal 
to  his  conscience,  and  is,  on  the  whole,  greatly  ob- 
scured by  the  emphasis  laid  on  other  things.  No 
doubt  cases  might  be  quoted  to  qualify  this  state- 
ment. A  few  are  readily  recalled :  a  rhetorical  flour- 
ish of  Tertullian ;  an  appeal  or  two  of  the  somewhat 
harsh  and  gloomy  Ambrose ;  a  chapter  in  Augustine's 
"  City  of  God  " ;  and  a  paragraph  of  some  twenty  lines 
from  a  homily  of  Boniface  to  the  barbarians,  —  hardly 
a  faint  echo,  all  told,  of  the  terrors  of  the  Apocalypse. 
But  I  should  say  (not  as  a  fact,  but  as  an  impression) 
that  there  is  more  "  blood-theology  "  and  "  hell-fire  " 
—  that  is,  the  vivid  setting  forth  of  everlasting  tor- 
ment to  terrify  the  soul  —  in  one  sermon  of  Jona- 

Q 


258  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

than  Edwards,  or  one  harangue  at  a  modern  "re- 
vival," than  can  be  found  in  the  whole  body  of 
homilies  and  epistles  through  all  the  Dark  Ages  put 
together.  Purely  speculative  doctrine,  such  as  the 
Trinity  or  the  Sacrament,  is  abundantly  urged.  No 
emphasis  can  be  strong  enough  to  state  the  need  of 
strict  accuracy  of  one's  belief  as  to  the  most  abstract, 
mystic,  unprovable,  unintelligible  points  of  faith, 
with  an  implied  menace  of  dreadful  consequences  to 
the  lack  of  faith.  And  the  moral  doctrine  taught  we 
may  often  censure  as  overstrained  and  unwholesome, 
or  else  coarse  and  low.  But,  set  beside  more  modern 
dispensations,  the  Catholic  exposition  of  this  period 
is  surprisingly  merciful  and  mild.  The  Church  had 
other  and  better  business  in  hand,  than  to  add  the 
terrors  of  eternity  to  those  of  time,  which  were  black 
enough  already. 

The  sacred  task  of  education,  with  its  strong  im- 
pelling motive,  is  brought  even  more  vividly  before 
us  in  the  next  name  on  the  list,  that  of  "  the  Vener- 
able Bede"  (673-735).  I  wish  there  were  time  to  go 
a  little  into  the  detail  of  the  sweet  and  patient  labor 
of  his  life,  or  at  least  to  repeat  the  gentle  and  pathetic 
story  of  his  death.  *  Bede,  or  Baeda,  with  whom  the 
title  "  venerable  "  has  grown  to  be  almost  part  of  his 
name,  is  best  known  to  us  as  the  historian  of  the 
Saxon  Church,  from  Augustine  of  Canterbury  to 
within  three  years  of  his  own  death.  That,  however, 
is  only  a  chapter  of  his  very  voluminous  works. 
These  include   extended  homilies  and  comments  on 

*  It  is  well  told  in  Green's  "  History  of  the  English  People  "  — 
with  some  slight  affectations  of  speech,  as  Mr.  Green's  manner  is. 


BEDE.  —  ALCUIN.  259 

almost  all  the  Bible,  and  —  more  to  our  point  —  a 
considerable  treatise  on  the  learning  of  the  day.  It 
begins  with  an  essay  on  Orthography,  the  essential 
basis  of  true  learning  then,  when  trained  proof-readers 
there  were  none,  and  all  accuracy  of  speech  was  in 
danger  of  being  lost  by  unskilful  copyists.  Then  come 
the  rules  of  Metre  ;  and  then  a  series  of  treatises  on 
the  Beckoning  of  Time,  —  a  very  perplexed  thing 
when  there  was  no  true  astronomy,  and  when  so 
many  festivals  turned  on  arbitrary  reckoning.  Thus 
the  topic  includes  the  whole  science  of  arithmetic  as 
then  known,  and  such  knowledge  of  the  sun  and 
moon  as  could  be  given,  and  the  cause  of  eclipses, 
and  expositions  of  the  calendar ;  and  these  lead, 
again,  to  some  simple  lore  of  meteorology,  and  the 
cause  of  thunder,  and  how  tides  are  affected  by  the 
moon.  Certainly  we  have  not  much  to  learn  of  nat- 
ural science  from  these  crude  essays  of  near  twelve 
centuries  ago.  But  we  see,  at  least,  that  there  were 
leisure  and  intelligence  to  observe  such  things ;  and 
again  we  honor  the  high  aim  and  motive  of  these 
pious  teachers. 

The  next  name  brings  us  down  to  the  time  we 
have  been  looking  back  from.  Alcuin,  most  famous 
of  all  these  teachers  and  men  of  learning,  was  born 
in  the  year  of  Bede's  death,  and  died  ten  years  before 
his  friend  and  pupil  Charlemagne  (735-804).  He 
also  was  an  Englishman,  caught  on  his  return  from 
Italy  by  the  all-embracing  Empire,  and  detained  for 
his  life-work  at  Charles's  court,  or  at  his  monastery- 
school  in  Tours.  He  is  the  author  of  a  great  many 
of  the  pious  and  occasional  verses  I  have  mentioned  ; 


260  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

and  it  is  a  little  odd  to  hear  him  address  the  king  as 
"  my  David,"  speak  of  himself  as  "  Flaccus,"  and  call 
his  other  friends  by  such  names  as  "  Homer  "  and  the 
rest.  Some  of  his  letters  and  one  or  two  dialogues 
turn  on  "  enigmas,"  or  plays  upon  words,  riddles,  and 
quaint  forms  of  speech.  These  sportive  efforts  do  not 
much  disturb  his  gravity  :  the  wit  we  may  call  pon- 
derous and  slow,  the  gravity  genuine  and  sincere. 
His  correspondence  is  a  very  long  one,  and  includes 
some  of  our  most  curious  pictures  of  the  time.  But 
you  are  more  struck  with  the  great  share  it  gives  to 
serious  counsel :  at  least  a  third  are  letters  of  advice  ; 
at  least  half,  if  we  include  all  the  appeals  to  religious 
and  moral  motive.  Cheerful  in  the  main,  and  always 
showing  how  close  to  his  heart  is  the  thou«-ht  of 
friendship,  he  never  forgets,  or  lets  you  forget,  that 
he  is  first  of  all  a  teacher.  His  longest  dialogue,  and 
most  vivacious,*  is  a  compend  of  Latin  grammar. 

The  above  names  do  not  give  us  the  history,  but 
they  will  serve  to  illustrate  the  course,  of  the  Chris- 
tian Schools  down  to  the  time  of  Charlemagne.  One 
thing  in  particular  should  be  noticed  in  regard  to 
them.  They  are  strictly  schools  of  instruction,  not 
of  investigation  or  of  philosojDhic  thought.  Their 
foundation  is  wholly  on  precedent,  or  else  on  dogma. 
Their  task  is  simply  to  co-operate  with  the  Church  in 
its  great  work  of  civilization.  Their  instructions  they 
take  unquestioning  from  the  Church,  when  not  given 
outright  in  the  literary  tradition.     A  little  they  may 

*  Except  an  entertaining  chapter  of  quirks  and  repartees  in  a 
conversation  between  Alcuin  and  the  boy  Pepin,  son  of  Charle- 
magne 


MOVEMENT  OF  THOUGHT  UNDER  THE  EMPIRE.  261 

have  done  in  the  development  of  doctrine  :  as  when 
Bede  comments  on  the  texts  of  Paul,  or  Alcuin  dis- 
cusses the  Adoptian  heresy.*  Aside  from  such  in- 
stances as  these,  we  do  not  find  a  ray  of  original 
thought  or  independent  speculation  in  what  has 
proceeded  from  any  of  these  schools.  Their  great 
teachers  were  content  to  be  learners,  f  Their  work  was 
to  instruct  the  childhood  of  a  powerful  race,  and  thus 
prepare  the  way  for  what  it  should  do  in  its  maturity. 

This  task  of  preparation  may  be  said  to  have  come 
to  a  natural  term  with  the  formation  of  the  Christian 
Empire.  That  event  marks,  in  a  sense,  the  political 
manhood  of  the  race  ;  and,  in  a  sense  still  more  qual- 
ified, its  mental  emancipation.  It  will  be  found,  in 
the  history  of  literature,  that  the  chief  productive 
periods  of  the  human  mind  have  generally  come  a 
little  after  some  great  political  event,  or  series  of 
events,  that  powerfully  appealed  to  men's  imagina- 
tion ;  that  shifted  their  mental  bearings,  so  to  speak, 
and  compelled  them  to  see  all  things  in  a  new  light. 
So  it  was  with  the  age  of  Pericles,  in  the  generation 
next  after  the  great  Persian  war.  So  it  was  with 
the  Augustan  age,  following  the  collapse  of  parties  in 
Eome.  So  it  was  with  the  Elizabethan  age,  following 
the  violent  shocks  of  the  Eeformation.  The  ninth 
century  was  no  such  brilliant  period  of  literature  and 

*  See  below,  page  262. 

t  Their   modest    course  of  preparatory  instruction    was    the 
Trivium:  Grammar,  Rhetoric,  and  Logic;  their  narrow  circle  of 
the  sciences  was  the  Quadrivium :  Arithmetic,  Geometry,  Astron- 
omy and  Music  ;  as  in  the  memorial  verses  :  — 
*^     Gram,  loquitur;  Dia.  vera  docet;  Rhet.  verba  colorat ; 
'    Mas.  canit ;  Ar.  numerat ;  G.  ponderat ;  As.  colit  astra. 


262  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

art  as  those ;  yet  its  great  fertility  and  comparative 
independence  of  intellect  are  naturally  and  justly  to 
be  associated  with  the  momentous  revolution  in  the 
State  before  described. 

An  occasion  as  well  as  a  cause,  however,  is  to  be 
sought  for  any  marked  phase  of  mental  activity  ;  and 
the  nature  of  the  occasion  will  determine  the  charac- 
ter of  the  phase.  In  this  case,  what  we  notice  is  a 
remarkable  and  sudden  development  of  speculative 
philosophy,  running  in  the  old  channels  of  theology, 
but  widely  overflowing  its  banks,  and  forming  the 
head-water  of  streams  that  continued  a  great  way 
farther  down. 

And  for  this  we  find  not  one  occasion  only,  but 
two.  The  controvers}^  with  the  Adoptionists,  which 
was  carried  on  at  Frankfort  in  794,  and  determined 
five  years  later  at  Aachen,  had  served  to  launch  the 
Western  mind  upon  the  shoreless  sea  of  transcenden- 
tal metaphysics.  In  itself,  the  Adoptian  heresy  *  was 
a  form  of  Nestorianism  which  need  not  detain  us 
here.  It  was  developed  in  Spain  by  contact  with  the 
rigid  and  unimaginative  monotheism  of  the  Arabs, 
intolerant  of  mystic  speculation  ;f  and  had  been  car- 

*  Making  Christ  son  of  God  by  adoption. 

t  Another  view,  given  by  Peyrat  (Les  Re'formaleurs an  I2me  Steele), 
is,  that  the  view  of  Christ  called  "  Adoptian  "  —  and,  in  general, 
the  "  Arianism  "  of  the  German  tribes  —  was  derived  from  no  Ori- 
ental source,  but  was  native  to  the  Gothic  races  which  now  occu- 
pied the  country  near  the  Pyrenees.  It  was  a  view  which  might 
naturally  take  the  place  of  their  belief  in  Balder,  son  of  Odin,  who 
had  suffered  death  from  the  machinations  of  the  Adversary,  but 
was  to  return  as  Prince  of  a  coming  reign  of  peace.  In  this  view, 
Christ  was  not  made  out  of  nothing  (as  held  by  Arius),  but  was  Son 
of  God,  so  to  speak,  in  the  ordinary  sense. 


DIONYSIUS  THE  AREOPAGITE.  263 

ried  over  into  France,  to  the  perplexity  of  the  priest- 
hood and  the  confusion  of  unsophisticated  faith.  It 
was  easily  vanquished  in  the  church  councils  of  that 
pious  time ;  but  left  a  mental  unrest  that  would  be 
sure  to  show  itself  in  some  other  way. 

That  other  way  was  soon  found.  In  the  course  of 
the  Greek  metaphysical  discussions  of  the  Trinity, 
some  three  or  four  hundred  years  before,  certain  writ- 
ings had  turned  up,  said  to  be  by  Dionysius  the  Are- 
opagite,  the  one  educated  man  at  Athens  that  had  been 
converted  by  Paul's  address  on  Mars'  Hill.  Copies 
of  them  had  found  their  way  into  France,  where,  tra- 
dition would  have  it,  the  same  Dionysius  had  been 
one  of  the  first  teachers  of  Christianity,  and  wras,  in 
fact,  the  St.  Denys  whose  name  has  rung  since  on  so 
many  a  French  battle-field.  Very  little  was  known 
of  the  contents,  for  these  were  in  Greek ;  and  this,  es- 
pecially metaphysical  Greek,  few  scholars  of  that  day 
were  competent  to  understand. 

Among  the  rest,  a  copy  beautifully  written  and 
adorned  had  been  sent  as  a  complimentary  gift  from 
the  Eastern  Emperor  Michael  to  Louis,  son  of  Charle- 
magne. It  lay  a  good  while  in  the  imperial  library, 
unread,  —  as  presentation  copies  sometimes  will ;  and 
was  overlooked  in  the  disorders  of  Louis's  unhappy 
reign.  But  his  son  Charles,  who  goes  in  history  by 
the  name  of  Bald,  had  inherited  some  of  his  mother's  * 
brilliant  gifts  and  his  grandfather's  love  of  letters ;  and 
his  court  was  the  home  of  the  most  famous  scholar  of 
his  age,  John  the  Scot,  known  in  the  history  of  phi- 

*  The  Empress  Judith.    His  medallion  shows  something  too  of 
her  beauty. 


264  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

losopliy  as  Scotus  Erigena,  that  is,  Irish-born .*  For 
the  British  schools  of  learning,  and  especially  the  Irish 
schools,  had  been  out  of  the  reach  of  storms  that  blew 
upon  the  Continent ;  and  we  have  already  seen  how 
the  English  Becle,  Winfried,  and  Alcuin  had  had  a  large 
share  in  keeping  up  the  tradition  of  letters  in  Europe. 

Of  all  the  Christian  Latin  writers,  Scotus  Erigena 
was  perhaps  ablest  up  to  this  time,  at  any  rate  since 
Augustine,  and  certainly  the  most  independent  in  his 
speculative  temper.  The  poet,  whose  Lament  I  began 
by  quoting,  calls  him  "  a  man  vain  of  speech,  and  gar- 
rulous, who  has  dared,  forsooth,  to  define  presumptu- 
ously of  the  Divine  foreknowledge  and  decree  ; .  dis- 
puting by  arguments  of  philosophy,  without  reason 
rendered,  or  alleging  any  authority  of.  the  Scriptures 
or  holy  Fathers ;  held  in  admiration,  I  hear,  as  a 
scholar  and  man  of  learning ;  who  possesses  all  his 
hearers  and  admirers  with  his  empty  wordiness  and 
windy  talk,  so  that  they  no  longer  obey  the  authority 
of  holy  Scripture  or  the  Fathers,  but  follow  rather  his 
fantastic  babblings."  This  language  sounds  quite 
familiar :  the  bigotry  of  ignorance,  or  theologic  terror 
of  free  thought,  could  not  be  more  neatly  expressed. 

This  famous  scholar  was  set  by  Charles  the  Bald 
(about  850)  to  interpret  the  obscure  writings  of  the 

*  His  was  the  famous  repartee  which  illustrates  the  court  man- 
ners of  those  days.  As  he  sat  opposite  Charles  at  dinner,  he 
offended  the  nicer  code  of  French  manners,  —  possibly,  passing 
his  cup  once  too  often,  — which  led  the  king  to  say,  "  What  is  the 
difference  between  a  Scot  and  a  Sot  ?  "  "Just  a  board's  width," 
lie  instantly  replied.  [Quid  distat  inter  Scotum  et  Sottum  ?  —  Tabula 
tantum].  At  which  the  good-natured  monarch  laughed  with  the 
rest. 


THE  DIONYSIAN   WRITINGS.  265 

Alexandrian  mystic  who  passed  under  the  name  of 
Dionysius  the  Areopagite ;  and  it  is  not,  perhaps, 
unfair  to  ascribe  the  extraordinary  freedom  of  his 
own  speculations  to  the  intoxication  of  that  contact. 

Of  the  false  Dionysius  little  need  be  said.  He  rep- 
resents a  line  of  independent  tradition,  that  had  come 
down,  parallel  with  the  orthodox  dogma,  from  the 
early  time  of  Gnosticism.  It  cropped  out  in  many  an 
Eastern  heresy.  It  had  blended  more  or  less  in  the 
theology  of  many  who  did  not  forfeit  their  place  of 
honor  in  the  Church.  Origen  was  not  held  free  from 
the  taint  of  it.  Synesius,  the  famous  "  squire-bishop  " 
of  Ptolemais,  held  his  Platonism  as  clear  as  his  ortho- 
doxy, and  in  his  letters  to  Hypatia  he  addresses  her 
as  his  teacher,  his  sister,  his  mother  in  philosophy. 
Particularly  it  throve  in  those  schools  of  New-Plato- 
nists  who  tried  to  build  up  a  spiritualized  and  diluted 
Paganism.  Their  hazy  speculations,  their  incessant 
allegorizing,  liken  them  to  the  Swedenborgians ;  their 
ecstasies  and  trances,  giving  them  direct  visions  of 
divine  things,  their  animal  magnetism  and  natural 
magic,  are  the  express  counterpart  of  modern  Spir- 
itism. These  acts,  or  nervous  states,  they  had  cul- 
tivated as  part  of  their  philosophic  piety;  and  they 
make  a  curious  double,  reflex,  or  travesty  of  those  high 
forms  of  Christian  mysticism  that  have  appeared  from 
age  to  age. 

In  form,  the  Dionysian  writings  are  fervently,  we 
might  say  emulously,  Christian.  Jesus  is  "  a  most 
divine  and  super-essential  soul";  the  theosophic  sys- 
tem they  teach  is  the  revelation  of  the  Eternal  Word. 
As  we  might  anticipate,  the  Latin  language  reels  and 
12 


266  THE  CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

staggers  in  its  effort  to  carry  the  weight  of  transcen- 
dental speculation,  to  find  its  way  in  the  mazes  of  in- 
cessant allegory.* 

Of  the  four  Books,  the  first  is  on  the  "  Celestial 
Hierarchy,"  —  one  vast  field  of  allegorizing  on  the 
scripture  symbols  of  angels  and  archangels,  cherubim, 
seraphim,  thrones,  powers,  and  dominions,  that  answer 
to  the  Gnostic  genealogies.  The  second  gives  the 
"Ecclesiastical  Hierarchy":  that  is,  not  of  ranks  and 
orders  in  the  Church,  but  (as  I  understand  it)  the  re- 
flex or  parallel,  as  it  were,  of  the  celestial  order  in 
variously  gifted  souls.  The  third,  "  on  Divine  Names," 
deals  with  such  topics  as  being,  life,  likeness,  unlike-: 
ness,  motion,  rest,  and  similar  abstractions,  setting 
forth,  in  particular,  that  Evil  is  nothing  in  itself,  nor 
produced  from  anything  that  is,  but  is  pure  negation, 
—  a  doctrine  which  seems  to  have  had  a  profounder 
effect  than  any  other  on  the  views  of  the  translator. 
A  very  brief  book  follows  "  On  Mystical  Theology," 
closing  with  an  astonishing  period,  in  which  all  im- 
aginable attributes  are  denied  of  the  Universal  Being, 
which  is  above  all  possible  conceptions  of  human 
thought,  as  it  is  itself  the  crown  of  all  things.! 

*  For  example  :  "  Ut  ascendamus  in  deiformosissimam  eorum 
simplieitatem  per  mysticas  reformatories,  et  simul  omnis  ierarchi- 
cae  scientia?   principium   laudabimus  in    divinitus  preefata  religi- 

ositate  et  teletarchicis  gratiarum  actionibus Omnia  igitur, 

quae  sunt,  participant  providentiam,  ex  superessentiali  et  causa- 
lissima  divinitate  mana^em." —  Lib.  i.  cap.  4. 

t  "  Neque  anima  est,  neque  intellectus,  neque  phantasiam  aut 

opinionem  aut  verbum  aut  intelligentiam  liabet quoniam 

et  super  omnem  positionem  est  perfecta  et  singularis  omnium 
causa,  super  omnem  ablationem  excellentia  omnium  simpliciter 
perfectione,  et  summitas  omnium."  —  Lib.  iv.  cap.  5. 


SCOTUS   ERIGENA.  267 

I  do  not  give  this  as  a  summary  of  that  famous 
scheme  of  transcendental  theology ;  only  to  hint  what 
ranges  of  speculation  were  thrown  open  by  it.  The 
writings  of  the  false  Dionysius  have  been  held  to  be 
the  real  fountain-head  of  the  vast  flood  of  Scholastic 
theology;  and  Scotus  Erigena  has  been  called  first 
and  greatest  of  the  Schoolmen.  I  have  not,  however, 
to  deal  here  with  this  line  of  speculation  as  a  system 
of  opinion.  Of  that  we  shall  have  more  to  say,  when 
we  come  to  the  great  age  of  Scholasticism.  All  we 
have  to  do  now  is  to  see  its  effect  on  the  mind  of  the 
time  we  are  dealing  with,  —  the  reality  of  its  influ- 
ence, and  the  nature  of  it.* 

That  influence  is  seen  not  so  much  in  the  questions 
that  come  up  for  discussion  as  in  the  treatment  of 
those  questions,  and  the  nature  of  the  arguments 
employed.  As  a  system  of  doctrine,  Scotus  set  his 
opinions  forth  in  his  most  labored  work,  a  long  philo- 
sophic dialogue  "On  the  Division  of  Things,"  —  a 
treatise  of  mixed  logic  and  metaphysics.  The  exposi- 
tion of  this  belongs  to  a  history  of  philosophy.     In 

*  An  interesting  example  of  the  speculative  temper  of  the  day 
is  found  in  the  correspondence  of  Servatus  Lupus,  Ahbot  of  Fulda, 
who  writes  to  Gottschalk  of  the  beatific  vision,  doubting  whether 
we  can  see  the  Ljivine  glory  in  the  resurrection  with  our  fleshly 
eyes.  "In  this  vision  will  consist  at  once  our  secure  blessedness 
and  our  blessed  security  ;  and  for  beholding  it,  the  Truth  admon- 
ishes that  the  eyes  not  of  the  body  but  of  heart  and  mind  be  made 
clear."  These  words  are  the  very  echo  of  the  Dionysian  writings, 
or  of  St.  Augustine.  A  little  before,  he  has  been  discussing  the 
quantity  of  Latin  syllables  ;  a  little  after,  he  sets  pitifully  forth  to 
Hincmar  the  desolate  condition  of  his  estate.  "  We  have,"  he 
says,  "  to  wear  patched  and  worn-out  clothes,  and  stay  our  hunger 
almost  always  with  garden-stuff  and  market  vegetables."  See 
also  his  urgent  letters  on  the  same  subject  to  Charles  the  Bald. 


ZbS  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

the  history  of  theology  his  place  is  known  as  the 
antagonist  of  Gottschalk  in  the  famous  controversy 
on  Predestination ;  and  a  few  words  on  this  become 
necessary,  as  part  of  the  general  history  of  the  time. 

Gottschalk  was  a  Saxon  monk,  who  had  long 
brooded  in  his  solitude  over  the  works  of  Augustine, 
then  of  unquestioned  authority ;  until  he  startled  the 
theological  mind  of  the  day  by  the  fervor,  almost  the 
fanaticism,  of  his  assertion  of  a  "  double  predestina- 
tion," of  the  elect  to  life  eternal,  of  the  reprobate  to 
everlasting  death.  This  doctrine  is,  in  moral  tone, 
like  that  form  of  Calvinism  which  we  should  call 
Hopkinsian,  —  a  doctrine  of  unspeakable  horror  to 
those  who  do  not  hold  it,  but  of  ardent  and  obstinate 
conviction  to  those  who  do ;  a  doctrine  which  is  the 
necessary  logical  result  to  all  who  hold  consistently 
the  view  at  once  of  absolute  Divine  foreknowledge 
and  of  an  endless  hell. 

Of  Gottschalk  himself  hardly  anything  remains 
except  his  two  Confessions,  which  consist  of  little  else 
than  a  very  positive  statement  of  that  one  thing.  He 
is  spoken  of  in  a  letter  from  Hincmar  to  Pope  Nicho- 
las, as  "  a  man  of  high-strung  temper  (animo  elatus), 
impatient  of  repose,  fond  of  new  phrases,  burning  with 
quenchless  thirst  of  reputation,  vehement  and  frac- 
tious." We  should  have  called  him  rather  moody, 
gloomy,  and  intractable.  "  He  was  condemned  in  a 
council  at  Mentz,"  Hincmar  goes  on  to  say,  and  "  by 
their  order  severely  beaten  with  rods."  To  that  rude 
and  secular  clergy  this  was  easier  than  a  contest  of 
logic.  They  would  rather  fight  in  battle  (and  very 
likely  did),  or  hunt  with  hawks  and  hounds. 


GOTTSCHALK.  269 

Gottschalk,  in  fact,  was  far  too  confident  of  his 
opinion  to  trust  it  to  the  mercy  of  any  logic.  The 
judgment  of  God,  to  the  mind  of  that  age,  was  best  to 
be  known  by  ordeal.  "  Set  me  here,"  said  he,  "  four 
vessels  in  a  row  ;  fill  one  with  boiling  water,  one  with 
heated  oil,  one  with  hot  pitch,  and  one  with  blazing 
fire ;  and  let  me,  to  prove  this  faith  of  mine,  which 
indeed  is  the  Catholic  faith,  go  into  and  pass  through 
each  one  of  them."  This  grim  fatalism  had  its  natu- 
ral effect,  in  wild  despair  with  some,  in  reckless  anti- 
nomianism  with  others. 

Hincmar  himself,  the  great  domineering  prelate, 
tried  his  hand  at  the  sad,  impracticable  dogmatist,  and 
thought  to  bring  him  over  by  a  compromise  which 
taught  God's  foreknowledge  and  predestination  of  the 
good,  his  foreknowledge  and  permission  only  of  the 
evil.  But  such  weakness  was  not  for  Gottschalk,  who 
chose  rather  to  be  shut  up  in  prison,  and  in  fact 
ended  his  days  there,  deluded  by  visions,  his  morbid 
temper  made  really  insane,  but  sturdily  holding  his 
rigid  creed.  As  with  Calvin,  he  saw  nothing  in  all 
the  world,  evil  or  good,  salvation  or  damnation,  that 
was  not  the  express  act  of  God. 

So,  as  the  ablest  philosopher  of  the  day,  Scotus 
Erigena  was  drawn  into  the  debate.  But,  in  oppos- 
ing Gottschalk's  doctrine  of  arbitrary  destiny,  he 
opposed  just  as  much  the  church  doctrine  of  creation 
and  the  fall,  of  sin  and  judgment.  His  language  was 
as  devout,  and  his  claim  of  authority  as  sincere ;  but 
the  whole  dogmatic  scheme  melted  away  in  the  mist 
of  his  abstractions.  True  philosophy,  said  he,  is  true 
religion  ;  true  religion  is  true  philosophy.     To  him, 


270  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

there  is  nothing  arbitrary  anywhere ;  no  room  seems 
left  for  what  we  should  call  freedom,  human  or  divine, 
only  one  broad  "  Stream  of  Tendency."  Harmony 
with  that  is  apparently  the  real  freedom  he  asserts. 
That  universal  life,  that  flood  of  eternal  light,  pours 
with  absolute  impartiality  upon  all ;  it  falls  on  men, 
according  to  their  nature,  whether  for  blessing  or 
curse.  As  a  blind  eye  cannot  see  the  light,  as  an 
inflamed  eye  is  only  pained  by  the  light  which  yet  is 
meant  for  blessing  to  all,  so  with  the  ignorant  or  sin- 
ful soul.  "  There  is  no  misery,"  he  said,  "  except 
eternal  death  ;  eternal  death  is  ignorance  of  the  truth, 
and  there  is  no  misery  but  ignorance  of  the  truth ; 
and  where  the  truth  is  unknown  there  is  no  life." 

There  is,  again,  no  beginning  of  creation  with  God, 
and  no  end  of  things  except  that  all  shall  be  received 
back  into  the  one  source  of  life.  In  his  own  essence 
God  cannot  be  known :  his  personality  is  simply  "  an 
act  of  man's  imagination  " ;  the  revelation  of  Scrip- 
ture is  only  figurative  and  symbolic.  Existence  itself 
is  more  and  more  abstract  as  it  becomes  more  real ; 
in  its  highest  form  it  cannot  even  be  conceived.  The 
divine  trinity  is  Being,  Wisdom,  Life ;  and  to  this 
answers  the  trinity  in  man's  nature,  —  to  be,  to  know, 
to  will.  The  "  division  of  nature "  is  fourfold  :  — 
1.  That  which  creates  and  is  uncreated,  —  the  First 
Cause;  2.  That  which  is  created  and  creates,  —  sec- 
ond causes ;  3.  That  which  is  created  and  does  not 
create,  —  things  as  known  in  time  and  space  ;  4.  That 
which  neither  creates  nor  is  created,  —  under  which 
head  will  come  the  world  of  Evil.  This  logical  for- 
mality is  the  groundwork  of  an  immense  amount  of 


DOCTRINE   OF  THE  EUCHARIST.  271 

allegorical  interpretation  ;  it  is  also  the  formal  pat- 
tern, or  type,  of  the  ponderous  discussions  known  as 
the  Scholastic  philosophy  of  the  Middle  Age. 

Much  of  the  language  I  have  quoted  is  familiar 
to  us  now ;  but  it  was  strange  and  alarming  then, 
particularly  in  the  inference  which  Scotus  seems  to 
draw.  His  theory  denies  the  possibility  of  Evil, 
which  to  the  common  mind  is  the  most  real  of  exist- 
ences. His  logic  leads  us  straight  to  a  pantheistic 
Fatalism,  as  that  he  opposed  declares  an  arbitrary 
Destiny.  Everything  is  swallowed  up  in  the  vague 
impersonality  of  Pantheism.  All  life  is  one.  Human 
freedom  is  lost  in  the  Divine  necessity.  Guilt  itself 
is  the  only  penalty  of  guilt.  Nay,  evil  itself,  of  any 
sort,  is  only  the  negation  of  good :  it  is  nothing  of 
itself ;  and,  being  nothing,  of  course  it  could  neither 
be  predestined  nor  foreknown.  To  which  we  may 
add,  that  it  could  not  be  committed,  either. 

But  our  business  is  not  with  his  philosophical  sys- 
tem, or  with  the  events  of  his  life,  which  are  very 
obscure ;  only  with  his  place  in  history.  It  is  proba- 
ble that  he  took  part  in  the  discussion  raised  by 
Eadbert's  doctrine,  that  the  bread  and  wine  of  the 
Eucharist  are  literally  the  body  and  blood  of  Christ ;  * 

*  This  discussion  (of  which  an  eminently  satisfactory  account 
is  given  by  Neander)  opens  in  the  period  we  have  been  reviewing, 
and  embraces  several  names  hardly  less  eminent  than  those 
already  cited,  particularly  the  great  encyclopedist  of  the  age, 
Rabanus  Maurus,  and  the  keen  theologian  Ratramnus  (or  Ber- 
tram). The  doctrine,  however,  belongs  strictly  to  the  mediaeval 
system  of  thought,  and  will  be  more  appropriately  considered  else- 
where. The  same  may  be  said  of  the  discussion  respecting  the 
Forged  Decretals,  —  associated  with  the  names  of  Radbert  and 
Hincmar,  —  which  first  appeared  during  this  century  (about  850). 


272  THE   CHRISTIAN   SCHOOLS. 

and  one  may  imagine  the  cheerfulness  with  which 
he  would  bring  allegory  to  bear  on  that  great  mys- 
tery. To  him,  the  Eeal  Presence  is  not  in  the  bread 
and  wine  only,  but  in  all  things.  The  striking  thing 
to  notice  is  the  positive  and  (as  it  were)  unconscious 
tone  in  which  he  sets  aside  all  authority  except  that 
of  reason.  "  Authority,"  he  says,  "  proceeds  from  right 
reason ;  reason  by  no  means  from  authority.  All 
authority  not  approved  by  right  reason  is  invalid. 
Eight  reason  needs  to  be  strengthened  by  no  agree- 
ment with  authority." 

These  are  brave  nineteenth-century  words.  It  is 
likely  that  their  reach  and  force  were  not  felt  then, 
whatever  uneasy  jealousy  they  may  have  stirred.  It 
does  not  appear  that  Scotus  lost  favor  in  court  or 
school ;  or  that  the  death  he  was  said  to  have  suf- 
fered —  stabbed  with  styles  (pricked  to  death,  as  we 
should  say,  with  steel  pens)  by  a  mob  of  students  — 
had  any  other  motive  than  the  sharpness  of  his  dis- 
cipline. Some  have  called  him  "  a  saintly  man 
through  and  through " ;  others  have  carped  at  his 
fame,  as  "  a  liar,  a  fool,  a  madman,  and  a  heretic."  l  A 
glance  through  his  writings  shows  a  wide  contrast 
between  his  purely  intellectual  method  —  whether 
we  call  it  religious  mysticism  or  speculative  pan- 
theism —  and  all  the  church  theologians  from  Augus- 
tine down.  So  that  to  us  the  interest  in  him  is  not 
merely  as  a  scholar  or  a  philosopher,  the  father  of 
mediaeval  speculation,  but,  still  more,  as  the  fore- 
runner, by  nearly  a  thousand  years,  of  the  newest 
forms  of  transcendental  free  thought. 

I  have  spoken  of  the  time  of  Charlemagne  and  his 


THE  INVASION  OF  FEUDALISM.        273 

successors  of  the  next  half-century  as  an  age  of  early 
revival ;  and  have  indicated  some  of  the  causes  and 
results  that  seem  to  justify  this  view.  In  one  sense, 
the  revival  was  not  only  early,  but  premature,  and  it 
faded  quickly.  Hardly  anything  seems  left,  a  cen- 
tury later,  of  what  had  such  vigor  and  promise.  As 
when  wheat  is  sown  in  autumn,  the  fields  were  green 
a  little  while,  and  then  buried  under  a  sudden  change 
of  season.  The  real  growth,  and  the  real  harvest, 
came  after  the  winter  that  followed.  The  change 
that  passed  over  the  face  of  society  with  the  breaking- 
up  of  the  short-lived  Empire,  aucl  that  seemed  to 
undo  the  whole  fabric  so  painfully  built  together,  — 
nay,  to  overwhelm  learning,  religion,  and  morality  in 
a  common  wreck,  —  we  call  by  the  general  name  of 
Feudalism,  whose  relations  with  the  Church  make 
the  plot  of  the  vast  drama  which  we  know  as  the 
history  of  the  Middle  Age. 


12* 


CHRONOLOGICAL   OUTLINE. 


[Many  of  the  earlier  dates  are  uncertain.    The  mark  t  denotes  the  year 
of  death ;  ►£<  indicates  the  name  of  a  Pope.] 


Emperors. 

b.  c.  30. 

Augustus. 

A.D.  14. 

Tiberius. 

25.  Pilate  in  Judaea. 
30.  The  Crucifixion. 

37. 

Caligula. 

Conversion  of  Paul. 

41. 

Claudius. 

Simon  Magus. 
50.  Council  at  Jerusalem. 

54. 

Nero. 

64. 

Conflagration  of  Rome.    First  Persecution. 
Death  of  Paul. 

69. 

Vespasian. 

70.  Destruction  of  Jerusalem. 

79. 

Titus. 

81. 

Domitian. 

Cerinthus. 

95.  Persecution ;  death  of  Clement. 
96.    Nerva. 

98.     Trajan.     Edict  against  Secret  Societies. 
100.  Pliny  in  Bithynia  :  Correspondence  with  Trajan. 

Apostolic  Fathers :  Ignatius  1 115. 
117.    Hadrian.  Polycarp  1 165. 

Gnostics:  Basilides  (c.  130). 
Valentinus  (c.  150). 
138.    Antoninus  Pius.  Marcion  (c.  150). 

Apologists  :  Justin  1 168. 

Athenagoras  1 180. 
161.    Marcus  Aurelius. 

Montanism  (chiefly  in  Asia  Minor). 

177.  Martyrs  of  Lyons  (Pothinus,  Blandina). 
Alexandrian  School:  Pantaenus  t202. 
180.     Commodus.  Clement  1220. 

Western  Church:  Irenaeus  (Gaul)   1202. 
193.     Septimius  Severus.  Tertullian  (Africa)  t220. 


276  CHRONOLOGICAL   OUTLINE. 

200.        202.  Martyrs  of  Carthage  (Perpetua,  Felicitas.) 
211.     Caracalla. 

218.     Elagabalus.  Christian  Writers. 

222.     Alexander  Severus.  Hippolytus  t236. 

238.     Invasion  of  Franks.  Origen  1 254. 

241.  "        of  Burgundians.   Cyprian  1 258. 

249-251.     Decius.     Persecution. 

JSovatian  Schism.  Sabellius  t260. 

Paul  the  Hermit  1351.         Paul  of  Samosata  1 275. 
260.     Gallienus.     Edict  of  Toleration. 
270.     Aurelian.     Captivity  of  Zenobia. 

272.   Goths  settled  in  Dacia. 
284.     Diocletian  (to  305) :  two  Augusti  and  two  Caesars. 
300.  General  Persecution. 

306.     Constantine.     312.  Defeats  Maxentius. 

Lactantius  t330. 
313.  Edict  of  Milan.     Donatist  Schism. 
314-336.    ^Sylvester  I. 

Arian  Controversy.     325.   Council  of  Nicoza. 

Eusebius  t  340. 
337.     Constantius.     Eastern  Monasticism. 

Athanasius  1 373. 
St.  Anthony  (251-356).     Basil,  329-379. 
361.    Julian  (the  Apostate).  Gregory  Naz.,  330-391. 

364.     Valentinian,  Valens.  UMlas,  311-381. 

375.   Goths  in  Mcesia.  Gregory  Nyss.,  331-395. 

378.  Battle  of  Adrianople.  Chrysostom,  347-407. 

379.     Theodosius.     381.   Council  of  Constantinople. 

Suppression  of  Pagan  Worship.     St.  Martin  in  Gaul. 

Ambrose,  340-397. 
395.     Arcadius  (East)  and  Honorius  (West). 

Jerome,  340-420. 
400.        410.  Sack  of  Rome  by  Alaric.     Augustine,  354-430. 

Pelagian  Controversy. 
408-450.     Theodosius  II.     423-455.  Valentinian  III. 
429.  Vandals  in  Africa.      431.   Council  of  Ephesus. 
440-461.  ^Leo  I.  (the  Great).    445.  Edict  of  Valentinian. 
451.  Huns  :  Defeat  of  Attila.     Council  of  Chalcedon. 
Monophysite  Controversy. 
St.  Severinus  in  Germany. 
476.     Odoacer.     Fall  of  Western  Empire. 

482.  Henoticon  of  Zeno.     484.  Schism  of  East  and  West. 
493-526.     Theodoric  :  Gothic  Kingdom  of  Italy  (to  554). 
496.  Conversion  of  Clovis. 
Merovinyian  Kingdom  in  France. 


CHRONOLOGICAL    OUTLINE.  277 

500.  493.   Gothic  Kingdom  of  Italy. 

Cassiodorus,  468-563. 
518-527.  Justin,  Emperor  of  the  East. 

519.  Reconciliation  of  East  and  West. 
Benedict  at  Monte  Casino,  529-543. 
627-565.  Justinian.     Reform  of  Roman  Law. 
533-548.  Conquests  of  Belisarius. 
554.  Gothic  kingdom  destroyed  by  Narses. 
568.  Lombard  Kingdom  in  Italy. 

St.  Columba  at  Iona  1 600. 
Gregory  of  Tours,  540-595. 
590-604.  ^Gregory  I.  (the  Great) ;  Augustine  in  England,  597. 
600.  St.  Columban  in  Gaul  1 615. 

St.  Gall  in  Switzerland  f627. 
622.    Mahomet  (Hegira).  Isidore  of  Seville  1 636. 

632-732.   Conquests  of  Mahometanism. 

MONOTHELETE  CONTROVERSY. 

668,  716.  Constantinople  besieged  by  Arabs. 
687.  Pepin  (d'Heristal)  founds  the  Carolingian  House. 
700.  Bede  (the  Venerable),  672-735. 

711.     Saracen  Conquest  of  Spain. 
718-741.    Leo  III    (Isauricus),  Emperor. 

Image  Controversy. 
732.    Battle  of  Tours  :  Saracens  defeated  by  Charles  Martel. 

St.  Boniface  in  Germany  1 755. 
741-752.    >J<  Zachary.     752.  Coronation  of  Pepin. 
755.  Donation  of  Pepin  (extended,  774). 
771.     Charles  (Charlemagne),  king  of  Franks. 
772-795.     ^Adrian  I.  774.  Conquest  of  Lombards. 

Adoptian  Controversy. 
787.  2d  Council  of  Niccea.        794.   Council  of  Frankfort. 
795-816.     >fr  Leo  III.  Alcuin,  735-804. 

800.     Charlemagne,  Emperor  of  the  West. 

The  Holy  Roman  Empire. 
814.    Louis  I.  (the  Pious).  Anschar,  Apostle  of  the  North,  1 865. 

843.  Partition  of  the  Empire.     Feudalism. 
843-877.    Charles  II.  (the  Bald).  Scotus  Erigena  t883? 

858-867.    ifa  Nicholas  I.  Forged  Decretals. 


INDEX. 


I.  The  Messiah  and  the  Christ,  1-20.  —  The  Messianic  hope,  2. 
Chronological  outlook,  3.  Sources  of  the  Messianic  hope,  6 ;  its  charac- 
ter, 8.  A  national  passion  (parallels),  9.  The  Messianic  period,  12. 
Sermon  on  the  Mount,  14.  Messianic  consciousness  of  Jesus,  16.  The 
entrance  into  Jerusalem,  17.    The  hope  transfigured  by  his  death,  19. 

II.  Saint  Paul,  21-46. —The  primitive  Church,  23;  power  of  the 
communistic  sentiment,  25.  Conversion  of  Paul,  28.  His  personal  char- 
acteristics, 29;  his  trials  and  contentions,  30;  jealousies  towards  him, 
32;  his  death,  34.  Writings  of  Paul,  35;  his  Christology,  36;  his  doc- 
trine of  sin  and  justification,  40;  his  conviction  of  sin  and  assurance  of 
salvation,  44. 

III.  Christian  Thought  of  the  Second  Century,  47-70. —  A 
gulf  of  eighty  years,  48 ;  development  of  doctrine  during  this  period :  the 
Logos,  50.  "  A  longing  for  Redemption,  51 ;  how  conceived,  52.  The 
Gnostics,  54;  the  problem  of  Gnosticism,  57;  scheme  of  Valentinus,  58; 
failure  of  Gnosticism,  and  why,  60.  The  Apologists,  61;  character  of 
their  Defence,  62;  seriousness  of  the  Christian  mind  at  this  period,  63. 
Relations  to  the  Roman  world,  65;  calumnies  against  the  Christians,  66; 
Montanism;  results  of  this  period,  69. 

IV.  The  Mind  of  Paganism,  71-99.  — A  Pagan  Revival,  72;  Cicero, 
73;  a  religion  of  the  Empire,  74.  Doctrine  of  the  Stoics,  75;  cosmogony, 
75;  ethics,  76.  Law  Reform,  78.  Persecution  of  Christianity,  80.  The 
old  Italian  religion,  81;  gods  of  the  Nursery,  83;  the  great  gods,  84;  Rome 
as  an  object  of  worship,  86  ;  her  tyranny,  87.  Peace  of  the  Empire,  88; 
the  Emperor  deified,  89;  formal  worship  of  the  Emperor,  91;  collision 
with  Christianity,  92;  Marcus  Aurelius,  93;  degradation  and  decline  of 
this  worship,  95.  Oriental  superstitions,  96;  sacrifices,  97;  the  taurobo- 
Uum,  98.     Ideas  of  Incarnation  and  Sacrifice,  99. 

V.  The  Arian  Controversy,  100-121.  —  Accession  of  Constantine, 
100.  Doctrinal  development  meanwhile,  101 ;  analysis  of  the  Logos-idea, 
102.    Sabellius  and  Arius,  105.    Christianity  and  Paganism,  107.    The 


280  INDEX. 

method  of  Faith,  109.  Character  of  Arianism,  110.  Constantine,  his 
character  and  circumstances,  112;  at  the  Council  of  Nicyea,  115;  the  Xi- 
cene  Creed,  116.  Athanasius,  his  adventures  and  character,  117.  lie- 
suits  of  the  Controversy,  119;  the  triumph  of  Orthodoxy,  120. 

VI.  Saint  Augustine,  122-115.  —  His  doctrine  and  character,  122; 
his  place  in  history,  125.  Circumstances  of  his  life,  126  ;  terror  of  the  time, 
127.  His  Conversion,  129;  a  reaction  against  Maniehseism,  130;  the 
Manichrean  dualism,  131;  a  system  of  fatalism,  133;  nature  of  the  crisis, 
135;  source  of  Evil,  136.  The  Pelagian  Controversy;  destiny  and  moral 
freedom,  137;  Augustine  and  Pelagius,  138;  issue  of  the  controversy, 
139.  The  City  of  God,  111;  time  of  its  completion,  142;  the  ancient  city, 
143;  moral  effect  of  the  work,  144. 

VII.  Leo  the  Gkeat,  146-164. — Character  of  the  period;  a  Pagan 
reaction,  147.  Controversies  of  the  Fifth  Century,  150 ;  Nestorius  and 
Eutyches;  the  "robber-synod,"  151.  Character  of  Leo,  152;  the  saviour 
of  Rome,  153 ;  conception  of  his  work,  154;  the  Council  of  Chalcedon,  156  ; 
faith  in  the  destinies  of  Rome,  157;  his  ecclesiastical  policy,  159;  Hilary 
of  Aries,  161.     Creation  of  the  Papal  Power,  163. 

VIII.  Monasticism  as  a  Moral  Force,  165-184.  —  Christianity  as 
a  conflict,  165;  need  of  a  reserve  force,  166;  enormous  evils  of  Pagan  so- 
ciety, 168  ;  horrors  of  the  Roman  spectacles,  169.  The  martyr-spirit: 
Perpetua,  171.  The  ascetic  motive,  173;  Simeon  Stylites,  174;  the  moral 
craving  and  habit  of  sacrifice ;  examples  of  Eastern  asceticism,  175.  The 
monk  Telemachus,  178.  The  monk  and  the  barbarian,  180;  Benedict  (of 
Nursia)  at  Monte  Casino,  181 ;  the  monastic  vow,  183. 

IX.  Christianity  in  the  East,  185-203.  —  Contrast  of  East  and  West, 
185;  in  language,  186;  in  political  life,  187.  Qualities  of  Eastern  reli- 
gious life.  188;  illustrated  by  four  great  divines,  190 ;  effect  on  the  vitality 
of  the  Greek  language,  192.  Reign  of  Justinian,  193;  his  conquests  and 
public  works,  194;  Monophysite  and  Monothelete  controversies,  195. 
Image-Controversy,  196 ;  forms  of  image-worship,  197.  Mahomet,  198; 
spread  and  conquests  of  Islamism,  199;  its  strength  and  Aveakness,  201. 

X.  Conversion  of  the  Barbarians,  204-226. — A  larger  concep- 
tion of  the  Christian  work,  205;  a  three  centuries'  campaign,  206;  com- 
parison of  Imperial  and  Papal  Rome,  207;  spirit  of  the  enterprise,  208. 
The  Barbarian  as  he  appeared:  testimonies,  209.  Clovis  and  his  House, 
211;  the  "Merovingian  times,"  212.  The  Conversions:  examples;  what 
were  they  worth?  214.  Gregory  the  Great,  217;  conversion  of  the 
Saxons,  218.  Boniface,  the  Apostle  of  Germany,  219.  Anschar,  the 
Apostle  of  the  North,  224. 

XI.  The  Holy  Roman  Empire,  227-248.  —  The  imperial  idea,  228; 
Rome  as  it  impressed  the  barbarian  mind,  231 ;  the  barbarian  conquerors, 
233;  Clovis  as  Patrician,  234.  Donation  of  Pepin,  235.  Coronation  of 
Charlemagne,   236  ;  his  conquests  and  administration :  details,  237 ;  his 


INDEX. 


281 


ideal  of  sovereignty,  240 ;  reverence  for  his  memory,  244.  The  period  of 
organization,  244;  ultimate  divorce  and  rivalry  of  Church  and  Empire, 
245 ;  the  mediaeval  conflict,  246 ;  later  fortunes  of  the  Empire,  247. 

XII.  The  Christian  Schools,  249-273.  —  Partition  of  the  Em- 
pire,—the  loss  to  civilization.  249  ;  its  care  for  learning,  250;  the  classic 
tradition,  251;  the  imperial  Schools,  252.  Cassiodorus  as  minister  of 
Theodoric,  253  ;  as  a  monastic  recluse,  254.  The  barbarian  mind;  how 
instructed,  256 ;  mild  doctrine  of  the  Church,  257.  The  Venerable  Bede, 
258.  Alcuin:  his  writings,  260;  the  Adoptian  controversy,  262.  Writ- 
ings of  Dionysius  (the  Areopagite),  263;  Scotus  Erigena,  264.  Gott- 
schalk:  controversy  on  Predestination,  268;  doctrine  of  the  non-existence 
of  Evil,  271.  The  intellectual  development  is  checked  by  the  invasion 
of  Feudalism,  273. 


Adoptian  Controversy,  262. 

Adrianople,    battle    of,    114,    120, 
148. 

JEons  of  the  Gnostics,  58,  59. 

Alaric,  129,  148,  232. 

Alcuin,  260. 

Alexandrian  Jews,  5;  theology,  50. 

Ambrose,  120. 

Anschar,  Apostle  of  the  North,  224. 

Apollinaris,  150. 

Apologists,  character  of  their  de- 
fence, 62,  68. 

Apostolic  Fathers,  48. 

Arabia,  200. 

Arian  Controversy,  100-121 ;  civ- 
ilization of  Goths  and  Burgundi- 
ans,  211,  n. 

Arianism.  110;  its  drift,  111. 

Arius,  105. 

Asceticism,  its  motive,  175. 

Athanasius,  117;  his  adventures 
and  character,  118. 

Augustine,  122-145;  his  character, 
123,  125;  circumstances  of  his 
time,  126 ;  his  conversion,  130 ; 
controversy  with  Manichaeism, 
132 ;  with  Pelagius,  137;  the  City 
of  God,  141. 
Attila  and  Leo,  152,  233. 
Babylon,  Jews  in,  5. 


Barbarians,  their  aspect,  209;  the 
barbarian  mind,  256. 

Bar-cochab,  12. 

Basil  (the  Great),  190. 

Basilides  (the  Gnostic),  61. 

Bede  (the  Venerable),  258. 

Belisarius,  his  conquests,  193. 

Benedict,  St.,  founder  of  monastic 
rule,  181. 

Boniface,  Apostle  of  the  Germans, 
219 ;  his  catechism,  221 ;  his  death, 
223. 

Byzantine  Empire,  189. 

Ca;sar,  82,  88^ 

Calvin  and  Augustine,  140. 

Cassiodorus,  181,  253. 

Chalcedon,  Council  of,  147,  194. 

Charges  against  Christians,  66,  67. 

Charity,  what  it  means,  124. 

Charles  Martel,  202,  234;  relations 
with  Boniface,  223. 

Charles  (Charlemagne),  235;  his 
coronation,  236 ;  conquests  and 
administration,  237  ;  effects  of  his 
reign,  240;  character  and  mem- 
ory, 244. 

Charles  the  Bald,  263. 

Church,  causes  of  its  early  growth, 
25 ;  its  relations  to  the  Roman 
world,  65,  92. 


282 


INDEX. 


Cicero,  as  representing  Pagan 
thought,  73. 

Circumcellions,  173. 

City  of  God,  141 ;  the  ancient  city, 
143. 

Classic  tradition,  251. 

Clement  of  Alexandria,  63. 

Clovis,  his  conversion,  211;  his  de- 
scendants, 212;  as  Patrician,  234. 

Columban,  his  monastic  rule,  215. 

Commodus,  95. 

Communistic  spirit  of  early  Church, 
26. 

Confessors,  61. 

Constantine,  100,  227;  his  charac- 
ter, 112 ;  legislation,  113 ;  at  the 
Council  of  Nicaea,  115. 

Council  of  Nica?a,  106,  115;  of 
Ephesus,  151 ;  of  Chalcedon,  116, 
156  ;  later  councils,  195,  196. 

Creed,  Nicene,  116. 

Daniel,  4;  date,  6;  predictions,  7. 

Destiny  and  moral  freedom,  139; 
Mahometan  doctrine  of,  201. 

Diocletian,  80,  114. 

Dionysius  the  Areopagite,  263,  265. 

Divinities  of  Rome,  84. 

Donatist  Schism,  125,  173. 

Dualism  (Manichaean),  131. 

East  (Christianity  in),  185-203; 
separation  from  the  West,  186, 198. 

Education  a  care  of  the  State,  250 

Eginhard  (Einhard),  biographer  of 
Charlemagne,  240,  242. 

Emanation  or  Evolution,  58. 

Emperor  (Roman ),  as  a  Divinity,  89. 

Empire,  Peace  of  the,  88;  ideal  of, 
227 ;  restored  under  Charlemagne, 
236;  mediaeval,  247. 

Empire  (Holy  Roman),  227-248. 

Ephesus,  Council  of,  151;  robber- 
synod,  156. 

Ethics  of  New  Testament,  43. 

Eutyches,  151,  156. 


Evil,    Pauline    doctrine    of,    42; 

Gnostic  doctrine,  66 ;  Manichaean, 

133. 
Faith,  the  method  of,  109. 
Filioque,  120,  186. 
Formalism  of  Roman  religion,  81. 
Fulda,  foundation  of,  222. 
Gnosticism,  its   early  appearance, 

54;  its  character,  55;  its  problem, 

57;    its  doctrine,  59;   its  failure 

(cause  of),  60. 
Goths,  their  victor}'  over  Valens, 

114,  120;   their  Arian    civiliza- 
tion, 211,  n. 
Gottschalk,  268. 
Gracchi,  the,  88. 
Greek  language,   its  subtilty,  186; 

its  vitality,  192. 
Gregory    of    Nazianzus,    190;    of 

Nyssa,  id  ;   of  Tours,  211;  the 

Great,  205,  217. 
Henoticon  of  Zeno,  194. 
Herod,  4. 

Hilary  of  Aries,  161. 
Hincmar,  208. 
Huns,  as   described  by  Jornandes, 

210 ;  their  defeat  at  Troyes,  157. 
Hypatia,  118,  265. 
Hypostasis,  102,  116. 
Image- worship,    197;   controversy, 

196-198. 
Interval  after  the  Pauline  period, 

its  importance  in  history  47. 
Islamism,  201.  [84. 

Italian  worship,  81;  the  great  gods, 
Jerome,  209. 
Jesus  of    Nazareth,  his  messianic 

consciousness,  13,  16;   his  moral 

teaching,   14;  the  entrance  into 

Jerusalem,  17. 
Justification  by  faith,  45,  137. 
Justin  Martyr,  63,  64,  68. 
Justinian,  reign  of,  193,  194. 
Law,  Roman,  reform  of,  78. 


INDEX. 


283 


Leo  the  Great,  146-164;  his  char- 
acter, 152;  deliverance  of  Rome, 
153 ;  faith  in  the  destiny  of  Rome, 
157,  206;  assertion  of  papal 
claims,  160. 
Leo,  the  Isaurian,  197. 
Logos,  doctrine  of,  40,  51,  76,  101 ; 

how  interpreted,  106. 
Maccabsean  period,  3. 
Mahomet,  196. 
Malachi,  3. 
Mani  (or  Manes),  founder  of  Man- 

ichaeism,  132. 
Manichaeism,  131 ;  a  system  of  fatal- 
ism, 133. 
Marcion,  68. 
Mariolatry,  151,  195. 
Martyrs,  171. 

Messiah  and  Christ,  1-20. 
Messianic  predictions,  6 ;  hope,  its 
character,  8,  11 ;  period,  12 ;  how 
transformed,  19,  37,  142. 
Miracles  in  the  early  Church,  23. 
Monasticism,    105-184;     in    the 
West,  166  ;  its  root  in  the  moral 
nature,  175 ;  monastic  vows,  182. 
Monks  as  missionaries,  180. 
Monophysite    (single-nature),    and 
Monothelete  {sinyle-ivill),  195. 
Montanism,  69. 
Mythology :  Roman  compared  with 

Greek,  85. 
Nestorius,  151. 
New  Paganism,  74. 
New  Platonism,  148,  265. 
Nicsea,  Council  of,  106,  115. 
Nicene  Creed,  112,  116. 
Numina  (functions  of  divinity),  84. 
Nursery-gods  of  Rome,  83. 
Odoacer  (or  Odovaker),  233. 
Ovid,  myth  of  Numa,  81. 
Paul    (the   Apostle),  21-46;    his 
character,   22,    30;    person,  29; 
trials,  32;  death,  34;  writings,  35 ; 


doctrine  of  Christ,  36 ;  of  sin  and 
justification,  40. 
Pagan  virtues,  41 ;  worship,  destruc- 
tion of,  127. 
Paganism,  Mind  of,  71-99;  revi- 
val of,  74 ;  its  weakness,  compared 
with  Christianity,  107 ;  suppressed 
by  Theodosius,  127 ;  reaction,  147; 
its  hold  on  the  imagination,  149. 
Papal  power,  its  growth,  163;  its 

extent,  206. 
Paschasius  Radbert,  224,  271. 
Pelagius,  137. 

Persecution  of  Christianity,  66,  80. 
Philo,  5,  50. 
Radegonda,  212. 
Redemption,  the  gospel  of,  51. 
Religion  of  Rome,  86;  it  discour- 
ages emotion,  96 ;  of  the  humbler 
classes,  95. 
Resurrection,  24 ;  doctrine  of,  64. 
Rome  as  a  divinity,  87;  taken  by 
Alaric,   129 ;    its    spiritual    nnd 
military  empire,  206 ;  how  viewed 
by  the  barbarians,  231. 
Sabellius,  105. 
Sacrifice  of  Christ,  19 ;  in  Antiquity, 

81,  97,  99. 
Saints  of  the  ascetic  period,  175; 

of  the  missionary  period,  216. 
Salvation,  how  taught  by  Paul,  45 ; 

the  aim  of  the  gospel,  52. 
Saracen  conquests,  202. 
Scandinavia,  how  converted,  225. 
Schools,  imperial,  252;  of  the  ninth 

century,  261. 
Scotus  Erigena,  264,  267-271. 
Second  Century,  Christian 

Thought  of,  47-70. 
Second  coining  of  Christ,  19,  25,  37. 
Simeon  Stylites,  174. 
Simon  Magus,  32. 
Son  of  God,   interpretation  of  the 
phrase,  102. 


284 


INDEX. 


Spectacles  at  Rome,  148,  169. 
Stephen,  martyrdom  of,  28,  44. 
Stoic  doctrines,  75 ;  cosmogony,  76 ; 

morals,  77;  failure  of,  78. 
Symbol,  value  of,  104. 
Tatian,  64. 
Taurobolium,  98. 
Telemachus,  the  monk,  178. 
Tertullian,  60,  68;  his  testimony 

79,  168. 


Thekla,  St.  172. 

Theodosius,  120,  127. 

Tours,  battle  of,  202. 

Trajan,  66,  93,  128. 

Valentinus,  the  Gnostic,  55,  60. 

Vandals,  160,  194. 

Virgil,  his  anticipation  of  a  golden 
age,  74;  regard  of  him  in  Chris- 
tian tradition,  255. 


THE   END. 


University  Press :  John  Wilson  &  Son,  Cambridge. 


/(zr 


BW901.A426v.l 

Christian  history  in  its  three  great 

Princeton  Theological  Semmary-Speer  Library 


1    1012  00066  7032 


